Yaoundé Nsimalen International Airport — Yaoundé, Cameroon

Cameroon's capital sits across seven hills in the country's forested central plateau, and the airport built to serve it, assigned the code NSI, occupies a site roughly 20 kilometers south of downtown Yaoundé at an elevation exceeding 2,200 feet, considerably higher than most Central African coastal airports. Nsimalen opened in 1993, replacing an older, more central airstrip that had become hemmed in by the city's expansion, and today it functions as the primary hub for Camair-Co, the national carrier that succeeded the earlier, financially troubled Cameroon Airlines. International flights connect Yaoundé to Paris, several other African capitals, and increasingly to Gulf hubs offering onward connections worldwide. Cameroon's dual character as both a Francophone and Anglophone nation, along with its role as a Central African transit point for business and diplomatic travel, shapes much of the passenger traffic here, even as Douala, the country's commercial port city, continues to handle a comparable volume of service.