Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea is a small Central African country made up of the mainland Río Muni, between Cameroon and Gabon, and islands in the Gulf of Guinea. Since January 2026 the capital has been Ciudad de la Paz, a planned city first named Oyala, while Bata is the largest city and Malabo on Bioko the former capital. Spanish is the main official language, French and Portuguese are also official, and the Fang make up most of the people.

Bantu-speaking groups moved into the region after earlier Pygmy peoples. The Portuguese explorer Fernando Pó sighted Bioko in 1472, and under the Treaty of El Pardo of 1778 Portugal handed the island and trading rights on the mainland coast to Spain. Britain leased Bioko as a base until 1844, and a Creole elite known as the Fernandinos came to run the plantations. A treaty of 1900 with France left Spain only a small part of the mainland it had claimed. From 1926 to 1959 Bioko and Río Muni formed the colony of Spanish Guinea, living from cocoa, coffee and timber.

On 12 October 1968 the country became independent under Francisco Macías Nguema. His nephew Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo took over on 3 August 1979. It is a presidential republic in which the 1982 constitution gives the president broad powers, and the ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea won every seat in parliament in 2022.

With 28,000 km² (11,000 sq mi) of land, it lies almost on the equator, which crosses its waters north of Annobón. The American company Mobil found oil in 1995, and petroleum has since made the country wealthy per head, though the income is very unevenly shared. The island of Annobón lies far to the south, beyond São Tomé and Príncipe, and Bioko is home to the Bubi people. It is the only sovereign African state where Spanish is an official language.