Bo is Sierra Leone's second city and the undisputed capital of the south: a bustling, hot commercial centre with no tourist pretensions, where the everyday life of the Mende interior beats strong. It has no grand monuments or beaches, but it does have an infectious street energy, overflowing markets and the historical role of having been, for decades, the capital of the British Protectorate and the political heart of the country's interior.
For the traveller, Bo is above all a base and a crossroads. This is where you sort out logistics to reach Tiwai Island —the famous primate sanctuary on the Moa River—, the Gola rainforest or the diamond mines of the east. It is also a good place to take the pulse of deep Sierra Leone: ice-cold Star beer at an open-air bar, football matches at sunset, heated political debates and the coming and going of the market.
This guide covers Bo with a practical eye: what to see in the city and its surroundings, how to get around by okada and keke, where to sleep and eat, and how to use it as a springboard to Tiwai and the deep south. With one or two well-organised nights, Bo stops being a mere stopover and becomes an honest immersion in life in the Sierra Leonean interior.
Bo was born in 1889 as a strategic junction on the railway the British were laying from Freetown into the interior; the train arrived in 1903. In 1906 the renowned Bo Government Secondary School (the 'Bo School') was founded to educate the sons of Protectorate chiefs, and in 1930 the city became the capital of the Sierra Leone Protectorate, a status it kept until close to independence. That railway, educational and administrative past made Bo the great centre of the interior and the cradle of much of the country's political class.
Read the full history ↓The heart of the Mende people: Bo, the country's second city, the river rainforest of Tiwai and its primates, and the remote Turtle Islands, where time seems to stand still.
Read the history of The south and the coast →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before the city of Bo existed, these green, rolling lands in the south of today's Sierra Leone were the heartland of the Mende people, one of the country's major ethnic groups. The Mende, who speak a Mande language, spread into the south of the territory from the mid-16th century. They organised themselves into chiefdoms ruled by hereditary chiefs and by powerful secret societies, such as the Poro for men and the Sande for women, which shaped social life, initiation and local politics.
It was a region that grew rice, oil palm, cocoa and coffee. Scattered villages were linked by footpaths, and trade in the interior was busy. The name 'Bo' itself comes from that culture: a popular explanation links it to the Mende expression 'Bo-lor', 'this is yours', said when sharing things out. There were no cities here in the European sense. Instead there was a dense network of rural communities with a strong identity and a lot of autonomy.
In the late 19th century, the old Colony of Sierra Leone covered only Freetown and its peninsula, founded by the British as a home for freed slaves. The vast interior, Mende country included, stayed outside direct colonial control. All of that changed suddenly with two events: the proclamation of the British Protectorate over the interior in 1896, and the arrival of the railway.
Like so many modern African cities, Bo is a child of the colonial railway. In 1896 the British formally proclaimed the Sierra Leone Protectorate over the whole interior of the country. To tie these lands, rich in palm, cocoa and coffee, to the port of Freetown, they set about building the Sierra Leone Government Railway, a narrow-gauge line that would push south-east.
In that context, in 1889, Bo was established as a strategic junction on the line under construction. The train reached Bo in 1903, about 103 miles (166 km) from Freetown, and later continued to its terminus at Pendembu, near the border with Liberia. The railway turned Bo from a rural spot into a trading hub. Goods from the interior passed through its platforms on their way to the port, and imported goods passed through on their way to the villages.
For decades the railway was the backbone of the country and the engine of Bo's growth, and traders, officials and workers moved into the town. The line was eventually closed in 1974, a much-debated decision that cut off the interior. Even so, it left a lasting mark on the layout and character of the city, which was born and grew up to the rhythm of the locomotives.
Two milestones made Bo the centre of the interior. The first was in education. In 1906 the Bo Government Secondary School, the famous 'Bo School', was founded on an idea typical of British colonial 'indirect rule': educate the sons and heirs of the Protectorate's traditional chiefs to create an African elite that was loyal to the administration and able to run its chiefdoms. Over time Bo School became one of the most prestigious schools in West Africa, and many leaders of independent Sierra Leone studied there.
The second milestone was administrative. In 1930 Bo was named capital of the Sierra Leone Protectorate, the seat of British government over the whole interior of the country (separate from the Colony of Freetown). Bo kept this status until close to independence. It made Bo a city of offices, courts, schools and missions, and added to its political weight.
Much of Bo's identity comes from this double legacy of education and administration. It is an inland city that knows it was once a capital, a cradle of leaders and a stronghold of the Mende south. It is no coincidence that Bo and its region are one of the main centres of Sierra Leonean national politics, traditionally linked to the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP).
Sierra Leone became independent from the United Kingdom in 1961, and Bo remained the great city of the south and a leading political centre. The following decades brought both hope and disappointment: one-party governments, military coups, corruption and an economic decline that hit the whole country. Despite all this, Bo stayed commercially lively and remained the unofficial capital of the interior.
The hardest blow came with the civil war of 1991 to 2002, one of the most brutal conflicts in recent African history, fuelled by the trade in 'blood diamonds'. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) spread terror across the country with massacres, the recruitment of child soldiers and mutilations. The diamond-rich east and the north suffered the worst. Bo also lived through fear and the arrival of displaced people. At key moments it also saw the resistance of the civil defence militias, the 'kamajors', traditional Mende hunters who defended the region against the rebel advance.
The war ended in 2002, helped by a large UN and British intervention. Bo came out battered but still standing, and it played an important part in rebuilding the country and returning it to democracy. The city soon got back its commercial buzz and its role as the great crossroads of the south.
Bo in the 21st century is a growing city, the second largest in the country. With a population of about 230,000, it is the main urban centre of the interior. It is a busy centre for trade and services, with overflowing markets, banks and universities such as Njala. It also has a national stadium donated by China in 2006, and street life comes alive at dusk in open-air bars.
Bo has also become a key base for the nature tourism that is starting to take off in Sierra Leone. Trips leave from here to Tiwai Island, a primate sanctuary on the Moa River. The island is now part of the Gola-Tiwai complex, which UNESCO inscribed in 2025 as the country's first World Heritage Site. Trips also go to the Gola rainforest and east to the diamond country around Kenema and Koidu.
Bo has only a few formal 'attractions': the clock tower, the old station and Bo School. Its real charm is its people and its atmosphere: Sierra Leonean warmth, a passion for football, talk about politics and a hospitality that makes travellers feel at home. Railway town, capital of the Protectorate, cradle of leaders and gateway to the south, Bo sums up much of Sierra Leone's modern history.
