Angola — map and facts

About Angola

Angola is a country of approximately 35 million people located on the Atlantic coast of west-central Africa. Its capital and largest city is Luanda, a rapidly expanding metropolis of over eight million inhabitants that stands as one of Africa's most expensive cities. Angola is a presidential republic governed since 2017 by President João Lourenço of the MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola), the party that has held power since independence. Portuguese is the official language, a legacy of nearly five centuries of colonial rule. Angola is one of sub-Saharan Africa's largest oil producers; petroleum and diamonds together dominate export revenues. Despite this resource wealth, poverty and inequality remain widespread, a consequence of decades of civil war and uneven development. The country is making significant strides in infrastructure reconstruction and economic diversification. Angola is also a significant regional player in southern Africa and holds membership in the African Union and the Southern African Development Community.

Geography and Landscape

Angola covers roughly 1.25 million square kilometres, making it the seventh-largest country in Africa. The landscape varies dramatically from west to east. A narrow coastal plain along the Atlantic rises abruptly to a vast interior plateau, the Planalto Central, which averages around 1,200 metres in elevation. The Bié Plateau in the centre is one of the highest points of this plateau, with Mount Moco reaching 2,620 metres — the country's highest peak. The Kwanza River, Angola's most important waterway, flows westward from the highlands to the Atlantic. Other significant rivers include the Cunene along the southern border with Namibia and the Cubango (Okavango), which drains southeast toward Botswana. The north, particularly the Cabinda exclave, receives heavy tropical rainfall and supports dense rainforest. The south transitions into semi-arid savanna and the northern fringes of the Namib Desert near the Namibian border. Angola's climate ranges from tropical in the north to arid in the south.

History

Angola's earliest inhabitants included San hunter-gatherers and later Bantu-speaking peoples who migrated into the region over two millennia ago, establishing kingdoms such as the Kongo, Ndongo, and Lunda. Portuguese explorers arrived in the late fifteenth century, and Portugal established Luanda in 1575 as a colonial base. Over the following centuries Angola became a major source of enslaved Africans shipped to Brazil, with millions transported across the Atlantic. Formal colonial administration intensified in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, accompanied by forced labour systems. A nationalist independence movement emerged in the 1950s and 1960s; Angola gained independence on 11 November 1975. Almost immediately, a devastating civil war erupted between the MPLA, UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola), and FNLA, fuelled by Cold War proxy interventions from Cuba, the Soviet Union, South Africa, and the United States. The conflict lasted until 2002, when UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was killed, bringing a formal end to 27 years of war. Post-war reconstruction has progressed significantly under successive MPLA governments.