Gabon

Gabon is a Central African country on the Atlantic coast, lying on the equator between Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo. Libreville is the capital and largest city, with Port-Gentil and Franceville among the other main towns. French is the official language, and Bantu peoples make up most of the population.

Rainforest hunter-gatherers known as the Bambenga were the first inhabitants, and Bantu migrants began arriving in the 13th century BCE. Portuguese sailors in the 1470s named the Komo River estuary after a hooded cloak, gabão, which it seemed to resemble. From the late 16th century European traders came for ivory, and the Kingdom of Orungu arose around 1700. Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza explored the area from 1875 and founded Franceville, France occupied it in 1885, and in 1910 it became part of French Equatorial Africa. Albert Schweitzer opened his hospital at Lambaréné in 1913.

After independence from France in 1960, Léon M'ba became the first president, and on his death in 1967 Omar Bongo took over. Multiparty politics returned in 1990, and Bongo led the country until his death in 2009. Gabon is a presidential republic with a two-chamber parliament.

Its 270,000 km² (100,000 sq mi) run from coastal plains to the Crystal Mountains and the Chaillu Massif, drained by the Ogooué River. Oil is the main source of income, followed by logging and manganese mining, though wealth is very unevenly shared. In 2002 about a tenth of the land became 13 national parks, among them Lopé and Minkébé, and the forests hold more than half of all African forest elephants. At Oklo, a natural nuclear fission reactor was active some 2 billion years ago.