Identify buildings on Central African Republic 5,000-franc note (B103)

Post a comment below if you can precisely identify the name and location of the building on stilts that appears at left in the vignette on the back of the Central African Republic 5,000-franc note (B103).

IDENTIFIED: Town Hall – La Mairie in Libreville, Gabon.

This same vignette also appears on Cameroon B403, Chad B203, Gabon B203, and Republic of the Congo B203, all introduced in 1974, so the building could be located in any of these countries.

Bonus points for also identifying the building with the tower and red tiled roof, as well as the mosque at right.

IDENTIFIED: Pointe-Noire train station in Congo Republic.

IDENTIFIED: Mosquée d’Abéché in Chad.

14 Comments

  1. would be nice to see entire banknote , other wise if one does not have your book it is quite a job to identify the banknote

    1. Author

      There’s no need to identify the banknote, just the buildings depicted on it. That’s why only the vignette is shown at magnification.

  2. the building on the left is a possibly part of university of bangui, the minaret is a just a minaret as the big mosque of Bagui does not have one looking like that- so it is stylized,, the building behind the university building is unknown to me

    1. Author

      Thanks for your input, but I’m looking for definitive identifications supported by images online. Keep in mind that this same vignette appears on the notes of several different countries, so do not assume the buildings are all in Bangui, Central African Republic.

  3. It looks very similar to the building in the postcard at this link:

    https://www.cardcow.com/307387/town-hall-la-mairie-libreville-africa/

    (The mural on the side of the building on the banknote does not look quite identical to what is in the photo, but otherwise it looks very much to be the same building.)

    The postcard is dated 1971 and describes the building as Mairie (Town Hall) – Libreville. It does not seem to be the current town hall in Libreville and I cannot yet find any more images of the building in the postcard.

    1. Awesome further details. I thought maybe it had been demolished. Just to note “Mairie” and “Hotel de Ville” both mean Town Hall in French, so it looks as though it was definitely the Libreville Town Hall at the time the bank note was designed, but as you say now the MInistry of Culture.

  4. Author

    Thanks to everyone for successfully rising to this Challenge and identifying all the buildings in this vignette. Just goes to show the power of crowdsourcing!

  5. Those minarets really don’t look the same. That middle section is pretty different and there’s no windows.

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