Roofing in Cabo Verde

Cabo Verde, a volcanic archipelago in the Atlantic off Senegal, has a roofing profile unlike the West African mainland. Almost all homes are roofed with concrete, while the traditional thatched round house, the funco, survives only in a few villages and museums.

Climate and hazards

The islands are arid to semi-arid, with a short, irregular rainy season and recurrent drought; drought slowed building in the early 20th century. Wind, salt air and, on Fogo, volcanic eruptions are the main hazards. Eruptions in 1995 and 2014-15 destroyed much of the village of Chã das Caldeiras inside the Fogo crater.

Roofing history

Cidade Velha (formerly Ribeira Grande), on Santiago, was described by UNESCO as the first European colonial town built in the tropics. It was a major Portuguese port of call in the 16th and 17th centuries and a hub of the Atlantic slave trade; its church dates from 1495. In colonial towns, wealthier families lived in two-storey sobrados. Neoclassical buildings, especially in Mindelo, followed from 1822 into the early 20th century. The Pedra de Lume lighthouse on Sal (1853) has a tiled roof.

After independence in 1975, flat-roofed buildings became the norm, similar to modern construction on the African mainland.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Funco: a circular house of stone (or, on Fogo, lava brick) with a conical roof thatched with palm fronds or straw, found mainly on Fogo, Santiago and Maio (see Funco). In colonial times it was mainly the house of poorer, Black rural families.
• Sobrado: two-storey colonial town house, concentrated for example in São Filipe on Fogo.

Roofing today

In the 2014 Afrobarometer survey of Cabo Verde, interviewers recorded:

Main roof material	Share of respondents (2014)
Concrete	88.9%
Tiles	5.8%
Asbestos	1.3%
Multiple materials	1.2%
Metal, tin or zinc	1.1%
Thatch or grass	0.4%

Afrobarometer surveys interview about 1,200 adults per country; these figures are unweighted counts in the survey sample. The near-absence of metal sheet sets Cabo Verde apart from every mainland country in the region.

Notable roofs

• Cidade Velha, Historic Centre of Ribeira Grande: early colonial town with churches, a royal fortress and the 16th-century pillory, a World Heritage site.
• Funco at the Museu Municipal de São Filipe, Fogo.
• Chã das Caldeiras, Fogo: lava-built round houses rebuilt after successive eruptions, with new huts from early 2016.

Local roofing terms

• funco: traditional round thatched house.
• sobrado (Portuguese): two-storey colonial town house.
• laje (Portuguese): concrete slab.
• telha (Portuguese): roof tile.

Sources and gaps

No national roofing code was identified. No information on domestic roofing manufacturers was found in published sources.

Survey shares are unweighted; national census housing tables (INE Cabo Verde) on roof material are not well documented in published sources.