Democratic Republic of the Congo — map and facts

About Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa by area and the second-largest on the continent, covering approximately 2.34 million square kilometres. It is home to around 100 million people, making it one of the most populous nations in Africa. The capital is Kinshasa, a sprawling metropolis on the southern bank of the Congo River. The government is a semi-presidential republic; Félix Tshisekedi has served as president since 2019. The country is extraordinarily rich in natural resources, including cobalt, coltan, copper, gold, and diamonds, yet chronic conflict, corruption, and weak governance have prevented these riches from benefiting most of its population. French is the official language, while Lingala, Kikongo, Tshiluba, and Swahili serve as nationally recognised lingua francas. The DRC is home to hundreds of ethnic groups, the largest of which include the Luba, Kongo, and Mongo peoples. The country faces ongoing armed conflict in its eastern provinces, particularly North and South Kivu.

Geography and Landscape

The Democratic Republic of the Congo straddles the equator and is dominated by the Congo Basin, one of the world's largest river basins, covered by the second-largest tropical rainforest on Earth after the Amazon. The Congo River, the world's deepest river and the second-longest in Africa, flows in a great arc through the country before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. The basin is surrounded by elevated terrain on all sides: the Mitumba Mountains and Albertine Rift in the east, where the Rwenzori Mountains include Margherita Peak at 5,109 metres, the highest point in the country. The eastern border follows the Great Rift Valley and includes a chain of large lakes — Lake Albert, Lake Edward, Lake Kivu, Lake Tanganyika, and Lake Mweru. The north is covered by dense equatorial forest, while the south features the Katanga Plateau and its rich copper and cobalt deposits. The country experiences an equatorial climate in the centre with distinct wet and dry seasons toward the north and south.

History

The region has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and Bantu-speaking peoples migrated into the area beginning around 1000 BCE. The Kingdom of Kongo, one of the most powerful states in central Africa, rose to prominence around the fourteenth century and maintained contact with Portuguese explorers from 1483. The vast interior was explored by European expeditions in the nineteenth century, most famously by Henry Morton Stanley in the 1870s. At the 1884–85 Berlin Conference, the territory was granted to King Léopold II of Belgium as his personal property, becoming the Congo Free State — a regime notorious for extreme brutality and forced labour in rubber extraction, in which millions died. International outcry led to Belgium annexing the territory in 1908 as the Belgian Congo. Independence came on 30 June 1960; the new republic immediately faced a crisis as Katanga province attempted to secede. Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister, was assassinated in 1961. Mobutu Sese Seko ruled from 1965 to 1997 under a kleptocratic dictatorship. The First and Second Congo Wars (1996–1997, 1998–2003) devastated the country, and conflict in the east has continued ever since.