Cameroun^{[dubious – discuss]} was a French and British^{[dubious – discuss]}mandate territory in central Africa, now constituting the majority of the territory of the Republic of Cameroon.

The area of present-day Cameroon was integrated to French Equatorial Africa (AEF) during the "Scramble for Africa" at the end of the 19th century.^{[dubious – discuss]} However, in 1911^{[dubious – discuss]} France ceded parts of the territory to German Cameroon, known as Neukamerun ("New Kamerun") as a result of the Agadir Crisis, and it became a German protectorate. During World War I, it was occupied by British and French troops, and later mandated to each country by the League of Nations in 1922. The British mandate was known as Cameroons and the French as Cameroun.^{[dubious – discuss]} Following World War II each of the mandate territories was made a United Nations Trust Territory. An insurrection headed by Ruben Um Nyobé and the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) erupted in 1955, strongly repressed by the French Fourth Republic. Cameroun became independent as the Republic of Cameroun in January, 1960 and in October, 1961 the southern part of British Cameroons joined to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. The Muslim northern part of Cameroons had opted for union with Nigeria in May the same year. The conflict with the UPC lasted until the 1970s.

Paul Biya (born Paul Barthélemy Biya'a bi Mvondo, 13 February 1933) is a Cameroonian politician who has been the President of Cameroon since 6 November 1982. A native of Cameroon's south, Biya rose rapidly as a bureaucrat under President Ahmadou Ahidjo in the 1960s, serving as Secretary-General of the Presidency from 1968 to 1975 and then as Prime Minister of Cameroon from 1975 to 1982. He succeeded Ahidjo as President upon the latter's surprise resignation in 1982 and consolidated power in a 1983–1984 power struggle with his predecessor.

Biya introduced political reforms within the context of a single-party system in the 1980s. Under pressure, he accepted the introduction of multiparty politics in the early 1990s. He narrowly won the 1992 presidential election with 40% of the plural, single-ballot vote and was re-elected by large margins in 1997, 2004, and 2011. Opposition politicians and Western governments have alleged voting irregularities and fraud on each of these occasions.

Biya has maintained Cameroon's close relationship with France, Cameroon's former colonial ruler.