Laterite pillars of a stone circle at Sine Ngayène stand in dry grass under a spreading tree.

Heritage

Stone Circles of Senegambia: Visitor and Heritage Guide

Over a thousand stone circles stand along a single river, built across more than fifteen centuries by a society we know mainly from its graves.

Country Senegal
Category Heritage
Reviewed 20 August 2026
Sources 2
Length 1 min read

Credit Tobias 67, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Four groups of megalithic circles stand between the River Gambia and the River Senegal, in a band about 100 kilometers wide and some 350 kilometers long. UNESCO counts more than 1,000 monuments across it. The four inscribed groups comprise 93 circles and numerous tumuli.

Two of the four, Sine Ngayène and Wanar, are in Senegal. The other two, Wassu and Kerbatch, are in the Gambia. The property is shared between the two countries and was inscribed in 2006 under criteria (i) and (iii).

What is actually standing there

Sine Ngayène is the largest site in the area: 52 circles of standing stones including one double circle, and 1,102 carved stones in all. About a kilometer to the east, outside the inscribed property, is the quarry the monoliths came from, where the sources of around 150 stones have been traced.

Wanar has 21 circles, again including one double, and nine lyre stones, sometimes with a cross piece strung between the two halves.

Excavation has produced burials and material from pottery to iron instruments and ornamentation. UNESCO dates the excavated material broadly between the third century BC and the sixteenth century AD, and describes the whole as a vast sacred landscape created over more than 1,500 years, reflecting a prosperous, highly organized and lasting society.

Visiting

The Senegalese sites are Sine Ngayène and Wanar. Both are fenced and staffed.
There is an interpretation center at Sine Ngayène and a welcome space at both sites.
The ground is open and uneven, and there is very little shade.
The quarry near Sine Ngayène is outside the inscribed property.
Seeing all four groups means crossing into the Gambia, which is a separate country and a separate border.

Sources

All figures above are from the UNESCO listing for the Stone Circles of Senegambia, ref 1226, read on 20 August 2026, and the property is shared between Senegal and the Gambia.