Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, Liberia

🇱🇷 Buchanan, also previously known as Grand Bassa on some maps, is the third largest city in Liberia, lying on Waterhouse Bay, part of the Atlantic Ocean. Named for Thomas Buchanan, cousin of U.S. president James Buchanan, and second governor of Liberia, it is also the capital of Grand Bassa County and lies 70 miles (110 km) south-east of Monrovia, near the mouth of the Saint John River. The town was popular with refugees during the Liberian Civil War as it largely escaped the fighting. Fishing is an important industry in the town. The town also has isolated beaches and lagoons.

Economy Buchanan is the port for the 155 miles (250 km) railway that brings iron ore from the mines at Yekepa, Nimba County. Originally built by the now defunct Liberian-American-Swedish Minerals Company (LAMCO), the rail line has now (as of 2012) been revitalized by the Arcelor Mittal Company. Rubber and palm oil once were also shipped out of the Port of Buchanan. Africa's first iron-ore washing and pelletizing plant was opened in Buchanan in 1968. This plant was severely damaged during the first Liberian civil war (1989-1996). Stephen Ellis writes that during early 1994, ECOMOG '. Nigerian troops dismantled, and exported as second-hand plant or as scrap metal, industrial equipment worth some $50 million' which had remained intact when the port had earlier been occupied by the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, Charles Taylor's faction. It is reported that the plant was later sold off as scrap metal to a Chinese buyer in 2010.

Buchanan Renewable Energies, a firm based in Toronto, Canada, that processes chips from rubber tree trunks into biofuel, has begun operations in the city.

According to the managing-director of Liberia's National Port Authority, Togba Ngangana, Chinese investors have signed a memorandum of understanding to build a manufacturing zone outside the southern port of Buchanan which would produce 50,000 jobs. This is in addition to an undisclosed amount of low-interest loans, debt relief and other incentives.