The French arrived first, establishing Fort Desaix here in the 19th century as they pushed their colonial ambitions southward. Within a few decades the fort had been taken over by slave-traders who turned it into a zariba - a fortified thorn-fence stockade from which they raided surrounding villages for captives. This was not incidental history; Wau's original purpose as a settled place was the buying and selling of human beings from the southern tribes who lived beyond it. When the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium took over Sudan after 1899, Wau became an administrative center. The layers of colonial purpose are still readable in the street grid: a French fort, a slavers' compound, a British district office, and - now - the capital of South Sudan's Western Bahr el Ghazal state.

The Cathedral of St. Mary in Wau was first built in 1905, making it older than the nation it now stands in. The current structure, built between 1951 and 1956, is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wau and remains one of the most prominent buildings in town. Its twin bell towers rise above the low skyline. The diocese serves the province's religious majority - a fact that matters because Wau sits almost exactly on the tribal boundary between the Luo and the Fertit peoples, and its population is among the most ethnically diverse in South Sudan. Minorities of Dinka, Baggara Arabs, and others share the streets. During the 2016-2018 Wau clashes, around 8,500 internally displaced people sheltered at the cathedral, which became one of the only places in town offering a kind of safety.

Wau has known war intimately. One of the first Anyanya insurgent attacks on Sudanese government forces happened at the Wau barracks in January 1964. During the Second Sudanese Civil War, the town was a government garrison; heavy fighting in the spring of 1998 and earlier battles in the 1980s killed hundreds and forced many Dinka residents to flee east toward what is now Warrap State. After South Sudan's independence in 2011, the peace did not last. In April 2017, Dinka soldiers of the SPLA and Mathiang Anyoor militiamen carried out a massacre of non-Dinka civilians in the town, killing up to 50 people and displacing thousands. Survivors have names; the dead had families. The quiet streets you might see today are not the streets themselves, but what grew back.

Wau has also given South Sudan some of its most recognizable figures. Alek Wek, the supermodel whose face helped redefine what high fashion could look like, was born here in 1977 before fleeing war with her family. Luol Deng, the former NBA forward who played over a decade for the Chicago Bulls, was born here in 1985. Thon Maker, another NBA basketball player, is from Wau. Cardinal Gabriel Zubeir Wako, who served as Archbishop of Khartoum, began his ministry in the Wau diocese. There is something in this town - the river, the cathedral, the crossroads trade - that has produced an outsized share of people whose lives end up on international pages.

Wau reveals itself from altitude as a grid pressed against the Jur River's west bank, with the cathedral's twin towers visible even from considerable height. The airport runway, 2,500 meters of asphalt running roughly north-south, sits just east of the town. Five main roads radiate outward - north toward Gogrial, southeast toward Tonj, south toward Tumbura, west toward Raga, and northwest toward Aweil. The narrow-gauge rail line runs north through the savanna toward Khartoum. In the wet season, August brings nearly 200 millimeters of rain and the surrounding country turns deep green. In the dry months the humidity collapses and the town looks dustier than it is.