Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a country in Central Africa, centered on the basin of the Congo River and reaching the Atlantic at its mouth. Nine states border it, among them Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and the Republic of the Congo.

Kinshasa is the capital and largest city. French is the official language, while Kituba, Lingala, Tshiluba and Swahili are national languages among about 242 spoken. Foragers lived in the region some 90,000 years ago, and Bantu farmers settled it 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. From the 14th century the Kingdom of Kongo ruled around the mouth of the river, which takes its name from the Kongo people, while the Luba and Lunda empires held the center and south. In 1885 King Leopold II of Belgium gained the territory as the Congo Free State, and in 1908 Belgium took it over as the Belgian Congo.

Independence came on 30 June 1960, with Patrice Lumumba as the first prime minister. The country was later known as Zaire, the Portuguese form of a Kikongo word for river. Under the constitution in force since February 2006, it is a unitary, semi-presidential republic made up of the city-province of Kinshasa and 25 provinces. It covers 2,345,408 km2 (905,567 sq mi), much of it under the Congo rainforest.

Mines in the south, around Lubumbashi, produce cobalt and copper, Kasaï supplies diamonds, and the ground also holds gold, tin, coltan and uranium. The Inga dams on the Congo River generate hydroelectric power. Five World Heritage Sites protect its wildlife, including Virunga, Salonga and Kahuzi-Biega National Parks and the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, and bonobos live wild nowhere else. Congolese rumba took shape in the 1940s and 1950s with Franco Luambo and Tabu Ley Rochereau, and Papa Wemba later carried soukous abroad.