Formerly part of the great Sudanese empires of Ghana (up to the 11th century) and Mali, in the 14th century. the Senegal region constituted an autonomous empire on the west coast of Africa. Explore by the Portuguese in the 15th century, the Senegalese coast was the starting point in the 17th century. for the French penetration in Africa. In 1817 France definitively obtained the territory, disputed by Great Britain and the Netherlands, but an effective occupation took place only in the second half of the century. In 1895 the Senegal became part of French West Africa (AOF).

Having obtained self-government within the French Community (1958), the country achieved independence in 1960 together with French Sudan within the Federation of Mali, which dissolved after only two months. In 1960 the Senegal was admitted to the UN as a separate state. President of the Republic was elected L.-Senegal Senghor, leader of the Union Progressiste Sénégalaise (UPS), while radical Muslim economist Mamadou Dia, dismissed in 1962, was appointed as prime minister. legislative elections of 1963 resulted in the overwhelming victory of the UPS; in the space of three years all the parties were outlawed or incorporated into that of the president and in 1966 a one-party regime was in fact constituted, inspired by moderate socialism. In 1970 the office of prime minister was restored, entrusted to A. Diouf.

According to localcollegeexplorer, after the reintroduction of multi-partyism in 1976, the general elections of 1978 saw the clear affirmation of Senghor and the Parti Socialiste (PS, new name of the UPS). In December 1980 Senghor retired from political life and his functions were assumed by Diouf; Elected president in 1983, the latter again abolished the office of prime minister, sparking protests from opposition parties, which resulted in a series of unrest. On the international level, the close relations existing with Gambia in 1981 favored the intervention of Senegalese troops in that country, at the request of the local government, to suppress a military uprising; in 1982 the Confederation of Senegambia was established, which dissolved in 1989. Also in 1989 a serious crisis opened with Mauritania,

In early 1991, an amendment to the Constitution reintroduced the post of prime minister. In the presidential elections of 1993 Diouf was reconfirmed, but the 1990s marked the progressive decline of the PS: to crack the hegemony of the socialists were, on the one hand, the growing discontent with the economic policies of the various governments, on the other, the worsening of the conflict in the southern region of Casamance, where the government responded with violent repression to the armed revolt, advocated by the secessionist Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de la Casamance (MFDC). The presidential elections of 2000 saw the success of the candidate of the Parti Démocratique Sénégalais (PDS), A. Wade. Some institutional reforms were introduced between 2001 and 2003, in particular, a new constitution limited consecutive presidential terms to two, while allowing the president to dissolve parliament in the event of a political stalemate. In 2004 the death penalty was abolished. At the end of 2004 a new agreement was signed between the government and the Casamance separatists, based on the recognition of the autonomy of the region within the framework of the Senegalese state. In the summer of 2006, the Senegalese army launched an attack on the separatist faction that had not accepted the peace process. In 2007 Wade was reconfirmed; four months later the alliance that supported him obtained a clear victory in the parliamentary elections, boycotted by the opposition forces. Also strengthened internationally, Wade in 2010 was able to announce the acquisition of sovereignty over the entire Senegalese territory, with the taking over of the military bases that remained in France after the end of the colonial regime. In 2012, a resolution of the Constitutional Council, called to decide on the admissibility of candidates for the presidential elections scheduled for the month of February, allowed Wade to run for the third term, despite a constitutional reform limiting the terms of office to two. In the second round of the consultations, held in March 2012, Wade was still defeated in the ballot by the former premier and his right-hand man M. Sall, who in the administrative elections held in June 2014 saw the Alliance for Democracy, a party of which he was founder in 2008, establish himself in over 400 communities, against the 29 subsidiaries in 2009; the result was confirmed by the legislative elections held in July 2017, in which President Sall’s coalition obtained the majority of votes. The politician, promoter of a constitutional reform that reduced the presidential term from seven to five years, approved in March 2016 by 63% of voters, was reconfirmed in office following the consultations held in February 2019.