Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo

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The Democratic Republic of the Congo Portal

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

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo, is a country in Central Africa. By land area, the country is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 111 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous nominally Francophone country in the world. 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 Congo was first inhabited by Central African foragers around 90,000 years ago and was settled in the Bantu expansion about 2,000 to 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 center and east, the empires of Mwene Muji, Luba, and Lunda ruled from the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 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 and the assassination of President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The war ended under President Joseph Kabila, who governed the country from 2001 to 2019 and 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 in a highly contentious election won by Félix Tshisekedi, who has served as president since. Eastern Congo has remained unstable since the Congo Wars of the 1990s and has been the site of an ongoing military conflict involving over 100 armed groups. The region's largest city, Goma, was occupied by the March 23 Movement (M23) rebels in 2012 and again in 2025. Since 2022, there have also been tensions between the DRC and Rwanda, which has been providing military support to M23 and sending troops into Congolese territory.

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; the nation is a potential example of the "resource curse". 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 having accepted over 50% of its exports in 2019. In 2025, DR Congo's level of human development was ranked 180th out of 193 countries by the Human Development Index and is classified as being one of the least developed countries by the United Nations (UN).^{[citation needed]} As of 2018^[update], 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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Male at Apenheul Primate Park

The bonobo (/bəˈnoʊboʊ, ˈbɒnəboʊ/; Pan paniscus), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee (less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee), is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus Pan (the other being the common chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes). While bonobos are, today, recognized as a distinct species in their own right, they were initially thought to be a subspecies of Pan troglodytes, because of the physical similarities between the two species. Taxonomically, members of the chimpanzee/bonobo subtribe Panina—composed entirely by the genus Pan—are collectively termed panins.

Bonobos are distinguished from common chimpanzees by relatively long limbs, pinker lips, a darker face, a tail-tuft through adulthood, and parted, longer hair on their heads. Some individuals have sparser, thin hair over parts of their bodies. The bonobo is found in a 500,000 km² (190,000 sq mi) area within the Congo Basin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Central Africa. It is predominantly frugivorous, compared to the often highly omnivorous diets and hunting of small monkeys, duiker and other antelope exhibited by common chimpanzees. Bonobos inhabit primary and secondary forest, including seasonally inundated swamp forest. Because of political instability in the region, and the general timidity of bonobos, there has been relatively little field work done observing the species in its natural habitat. (Full article...)

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

Image 1Abeti Masikini in 1978 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 2Belligerents of the Second Congo War (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 3View of Leopoldville Station and Port in 1884 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 4President Joseph Kabila with U.S. President Barack Obama in August 2014 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 5Democratic Republic of the Congo map of Köppen climate classification (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 7Franco Luambo and his OK Jazz orchestra performing live at Zaire 74 (from 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 9Arab slave raid on Nyangwe, circa 1870 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 10DR Congo's Human Development Index scores, 1970–2010. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 11The map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 12Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., 1973. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 13Brahmanist worshippers in Kinshasa (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 14A group of demobilized child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 15Change in per capita GDP of Congo, 1950–2018. Figures are inflation-adjusted to 2011 International dollars. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 16Ndeemba Mask (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 17Ugandan President Idi Amin Visits Zaire and Meets Mobutu during The Shaba I Conflict (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 18Refugees in the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 19Congo Free State official Camille Coquilhat with the Bangala chief Mata-Buiké in c. 1888 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 20Ituri Rainforest (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 21Found in the Congolian rainforests, the okapi was unknown to science until 1901 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 22People fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebel groups, North Kivu, 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 23Democratic Republic of the Congo's population between 1960 and 2017. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 24Train from Lubumbashi arriving in Kindu on a newly refurbished line. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 25Flag of CNDP (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 261908 photograph of a married Christian couple. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 27Our Lady of Peace Cathedral in Bukavu (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 28Map of the Kingdom of Kongo (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 29The four Bantu languages with elevated "national" status. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 30Development of life expectancy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 31Breakdown of the largest ethnic groups in DRC (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 32The Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Lubumbashi (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 33A Congolese Christian. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 34Joseph Kabila was President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from January 2001 to January 2019. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 35A map of the major Bantu languages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 36Masque féminin Ngaady a mwaash, XIX-XXe siècles (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 37Memory Board (lukasa) - Luba Kingdom (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 38Patrice Lumumba, founding member and leader of the MNC (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 39Patrice 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 40A woman carrying bananas. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 41Mobutu Sese Seko (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 42Mobutu with the Dutch Prince Bernhard in Kinshasa in 1973 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 43The 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 44Population fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebels groups, Sake North Kivu 30 April 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 45Government troops near Goma during the M23 rebellion in May 2013 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 46Map of rail network (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 47A classroom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 48President 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 49A Hemba male statue (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 50Kasaï-Central province, where the Kamwina Nsapu militia clashes with security forces began. (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 51Lake Kivu in North Kivu province (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 52Collecting firewood in Basankusu. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 53Children mutilated during King Leopold II's rule (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 54The leader of ABAKO, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, first democratically elected President of Congo-Léopoldville (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 55Congolese soldiers being trained by UN personnel. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 56Roman Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)

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Antoine-Roger Bolamba, later Bolamba Lokolé J'ongungu (27 July 1913 – 9 July 2002), was a Congolese journalist, writer, and politician. He edited the monthly journal La Voix du Congolais from 1945 until 1959. He also served as Secretary of State for Information and Cultural Affairs of the Republic of the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1960 and then as Minister of Information and Tourism from 1963 until 1964.

Bolamba was born to a Mongo family in 1913 in the Belgian Congo. During his education he took interest in French literature and soon thereafter began to write, publishing various works and contributing to Congolese periodicals. He gained public attention in 1939 after winning awards for his writing. In 1944 he was hired by the colonial government to manage its press division, and the following year he was made editor-in-chief of a new publication, La Voix du Congolais. Bolamba held much influence in the city of Léopoldville and frequently discussed the social implications of colonialism. He also began writing poetry, and in 1956 he released a collection entitled Esanzo: Chants pour mon pays, which articulated his Mongo and Congolese identity. (Full article...)

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Belgian Congo in World War II Abir Congo Company Yellala Falls South Kasai Free Republic of the Congo Atrocities in the Congo Free State Congo Crisis Congolese Independence Speech Common eland Barthélemy Mukenge Jean-Chrysostome Weregemere Steve Zakuani Laurent Eketebi William Henry Sheppard Okapi Battle of Rejaf

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Tintin in the Congo (French: Tintin au Congo; French pronunciation: [tɛ̃tɛ̃ o kɔ̃go]) is the second volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian comic strip artist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from May 1930 to June 1931 before being published in a collected volume by Éditions de Petit Vingtième in 1931. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who are sent to the Belgian Congo to report on events in the country. Amid various encounters with the native Congolese people and wild animals, Tintin unearths a criminal diamond smuggling operation run by the American gangster Al Capone.

Following on from Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and bolstered by publicity stunts, Tintin in the Congo was a commercial success within Belgium and was also serialised in France. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with Tintin in America in 1932, and the series subsequently became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. In 1946, Hergé re-drew and coloured Tintin in the Congo in his distinctive ligne-claire style for republication by Casterman, with further alterations made at the request of his Scandinavian publisher for a 1975 edition. (Full article...)