Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo

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The Democratic Republic of the Congo Portal

Flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo	Coat of Arms of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Kinshasa, East Congo, Congo DR, DR Congo, DRC, or simply either Congo or the Congo, is a country in Central Africa. By land area, the DRC is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 105 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous Francophone country in the world, and the fourth-largest in Africa. The national capital and largest city is Kinshasa, which is also the economic center. The country is bordered by the Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika), Zambia, Angola, the Cabinda exclave of Angola, and the South Atlantic Ocean.

Centered on the Congo Basin, the territory of the DRC was first inhabited by Central African foragers around 90,000 years ago and was reached by the Bantu expansion about 3,000 years ago. In the west, the Kingdom of Kongo ruled around the mouth of the Congo River from the 14th to 19th centuries. In the northeast, center, and east, the kingdoms of Azande, Luba, and Lunda ruled from the 16th and 17th centuries to the 19th century. King Leopold II of Belgium formally acquired rights to the Congo territory from the colonial nations of Europe in 1885 and declared the land his private property, naming it the Congo Free State. From 1885 to 1908, his colonial military forced the local population to produce rubber and committed widespread atrocities. In 1908, Leopold ceded the territory, which thus became a Belgian colony.

Congo achieved independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960 and was immediately confronted by a series of secessionist movements, the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, and the seizure of power by Mobutu Sese Seko in a 1965 coup d'état. Mobutu renamed the country Zaire in 1971 and imposed a harsh personalist dictatorship until his overthrow in 1997 by the First Congo War. The country then had its name changed back and was confronted by the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2003, which resulted in the deaths of 5.4 million people. The war ended under President Joseph Kabila, who governed the country from 2001 to 2019, under whom human rights in the country remained poor and included frequent abuses such as forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment and restrictions on civil liberties. Following the 2018 general election, in the country's first peaceful transition of power since independence, Kabila was succeeded as president by Félix Tshisekedi, who has served as president since. Since 2015, the Eastern DR Congo has been the site of an ongoing military conflict in Kivu.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is extremely rich in natural resources but has suffered from political instability, a lack of infrastructure, corruption, and centuries of both commercial and colonial extraction and exploitation, followed by more than 60 years of independence, with little widespread development. Besides the capital Kinshasa, the two next largest cities, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, are both mining communities. The DRC's largest export is raw minerals, with China accepting over 50% of its exports in 2019. In 2021, DR Congo's level of human development was ranked 179th out of 191 countries by the Human Development Index and is classed as a least developed country by the UN. , following two decades of various civil wars and continued internal conflicts, around 600,000 Congolese refugees were still living in neighbouring countries. Two million children risk starvation, and the fighting has displaced 4.5 million people. The country is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, African Union, COMESA, Southern African Development Community, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, and Economic Community of Central African States. (Full article...)

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A Kongo woman's cast from 1910 by Herbert Ward

The Kongo people (Kongo: Bisi Kongo, EsiKongo, singular: Musi Kongo; also Bakongo, singular: Mukongo or M'kongo) are a Bantu ethnic group primarily defined as the speakers of Kikongo. Subgroups include the Beembe, Bwende, Vili, Sundi, Yombe, Dondo, Lari, and others.

They have lived along the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, in a region that by the 15th century was a centralized and well-organized Kingdom of Kongo, but is now a part of three countries. Their highest concentrations are found south of Pointe-Noire in the Republic of the Congo, southwest of Pool Malebo and west of the Kwango River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, north of Luanda, Angola and southwest Gabon. They are the largest ethnic group in the Republic of the Congo, and one of the major ethnic groups in the other two countries they are found in. In 1975, the Kongo population was reported as 4,040,000. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Democratic Republic of the Congo-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Patrice Lumumba, founding member and leader of the MNC (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 2Children mutilated during King Leopold II's rule (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 3Change in per capita GDP of Congo, 1950–2018. Figures are inflation-adjusted to 2011 International dollars. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 4Ndeemba Mask (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 5Franco Luambo and his OK Jazz orchestra performing live at Zaire 74 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 6Force Publique soldiers in the Belgian Congo in 1918. At its peak, the Force Publique had around 19,000 Congolese soldiers, led by 420 Belgian officers. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 7Flag of CNDP (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 8Rough diamonds ≈1 to 1.5 mm in size from DR Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 9Belligerents of the Second Congo War (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 10Map of rail network (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 11Ugandan President Idi Amin Visits Zaire and Meets Mobutu during The Shaba I Conflict (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 12Congolese soldiers being trained by UN personnel. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 13Memory Board (lukasa) - Luba Kingdom (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 14A map of the major Bantu languages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 15Masque féminin Ngaady a mwaash, XIX-XXe siècles (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 16A classroom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 17Mobutu Sese Seko (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 18DR Congo's Human Development Index scores, 1970–2010. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 191908 photograph of a married Christian couple. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 20Branhamist worshippers in Kinshasa (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 21Ituri Rainforest (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 22Patrice Lumumba, first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congo-Léopoldville, was murdered by Belgian-supported Katangan separatists in 1961. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 23Train from Lubumbashi arriving in Kindu on a newly refurbished line. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 24Abeti Masikini in 1978 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 25Roman Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 26Arab slave raid on Nyangwe, circa 1870 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 27A Congolese Christian. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 28Kasaï-Central province, where the Kamwina Nsapu militia clashes with security forces began. (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 29Breakdown of the largest ethnic groups in DRC (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 30The leader of ABAKO, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, first democratically elected President of Congo-Léopoldville (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 31Refugees in the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 32Our Lady of Peace Cathedral in Bukavu (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 33Democratic Republic of the Congo map of Köppen climate classification (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 34The four Bantu languages with elevated "national" status. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 35View of Leopoldville Station and Port in 1884 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 36Mobutu with the Dutch Prince Bernhard in Kinshasa in 1973 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 37The endangered mountain gorilla; half of its population live in the DRC's Virunga National Park, making the park a critical habitat for these animals. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 38Democratic Republic of the Congo's population between 1960 and 2017. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 39Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., 1973. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 40People fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebel groups, North Kivu, 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 41Population fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebels groups, Sake North Kivu 30 April 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 42Found in the Congolian rainforests, the okapi was unknown to science until 1901 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 43A woman carrying bananas. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 44Government troops near Goma during the M23 rebellion in May 2013 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 45The Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Lubumbashi (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 46Development of life expectancy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 47Map of the Kingdom of Kongo (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 48Joseph Kabila was President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from January 2001 to January 2019. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 49Collecting firewood in Basankusu. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 50President Félix Tshisekedi with the president of neighbouring Republic of the Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso in 2020; both wear face masks due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 51A Hemba male statue (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 52A group of demobilized child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 53President Joseph Kabila with U.S. President Barack Obama in August 2014 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 54The map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 55Congo Free State official Camille Coquilhat with the Bangala chief Mata-Buiké in c. 1888 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)

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Male okapi at Beauval Zoo

The okapi (/oʊˈkɑːpiː/; Okapia johnstoni), also known as the forest giraffe, Congolese giraffe and zebra giraffe, is an artiodactyl mammal that is endemic to the northeast Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa. However, non-invasive genetic identification has suggested that a population has occurred south-west of the Congo River as well. It is the only species in the genus Okapia. Although the okapi has striped markings reminiscent of zebras, it is most closely related to the giraffe. The okapi and the giraffe are the only living members of the family Giraffidae.

The okapi stands about 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) tall at the shoulder and has a typical body length around 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in). Its weight ranges from 200 to 350 kg (440 to 770 lb). It has a long neck, and large, flexible ears. Its coat is a chocolate to reddish brown, much in contrast with the white horizontal stripes and rings on the legs, and white ankles. Male okapis have short, distinct horn-like protuberances on their heads called ossicones, less than 15 cm (5.9 in) in length. Females possess hair whorls, and ossicones are absent. (Full article...)

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Swedish UN peacekeepers led by Major Sture Fagerström plan their attack on the town of Kamina during the operation

Operation Grandslam was an offensive undertaken by United Nations peacekeeping forces from 28 December 1962 to 15 January 1963 against the forces of the State of Katanga, a secessionist state rebelling against the Republic of the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in Central Africa. The Katangese forces were decisively defeated and Katanga was forcibly reintegrated into the Congo.

The United Nations had tried several times to reconcile the government of the Congo with the State of Katanga, which had declared independence under Moïse Tshombe with Belgian support in 1960. Though initially limiting its actions, the United Nations Operation in the Congo became increasingly impatient towards Katanga and Tshombe, drawing up plans to resolve the situation through force. Tshombe continuously violated agreements he had made with the United Nations and the Congolese government by building up his forces and bringing foreign mercenaries into the conflict. The situation reached a breaking point in December 1962 when Katangese gendarmes attacked peacekeeping forces in Katanga. United Nations Secretary-General U Thant authorised a retaliatory offensive to eliminate secessionist opposition. (Full article...)