Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The Democratic Republic of the Congo Portal

P:DRC

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 DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply 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 110 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous 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 3000 to 2000 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. Since 2015, eastern Congo has been the site of an ongoing military conflict.

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. 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...)

More about the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (French: Forces armées de la république démocratique du Congo [FARDC]) is the state organisation responsible for defending the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The FARDC was rebuilt patchily as part of the peace process which followed the end of the Second Congo War in July 2003.

The majority of FARDC members are land forces, but it also has a small air force and an even smaller navy. In 2010–2011 the three services may have numbered between 144,000 and 159,000 personnel. In addition, there is a presidential force called the Republican Guard, but it and the Congolese National Police (PNC) are not part of the Armed Forces. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images - show another

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

Image 1Mobutu Sese Seko (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 2Development of life expectancy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 31908 photograph of a married Christian couple. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 4A classroom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 5A group of demobilized child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 6A map of the major Bantu languages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Culture of the 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 8People fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebel groups, North Kivu, 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 9Children mutilated during King Leopold II's rule (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 10Kasaï-Central province, where the Kamwina Nsapu militia clashes with security forces began. (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 11Government troops near Goma during the M23 rebellion in May 2013 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 12The leader of ABAKO, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, first democratically elected President of Congo-Léopoldville (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 13President Joseph Kabila with U.S. President Barack Obama in August 2014 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 14Rough diamonds ≈1 to 1.5 mm in size from DR Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 15Memory Board (lukasa) - Luba Kingdom (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 16Ugandan President Idi Amin Visits Zaire and Meets Mobutu during The Shaba I Conflict (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 17Abeti Masikini in 1978 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 18The four Bantu languages with elevated "national" status. (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 20DR Congo's Human Development Index scores, 1970–2010. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 21Democratic Republic of the Congo's population between 1960 and 2017. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 22Ituri Rainforest (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 23Our Lady of Peace Cathedral in Bukavu (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 24Change in per capita GDP of Congo, 1950–2018. Figures are inflation-adjusted to 2011 International dollars. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 25A Congolese Christian. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 26A Hemba male statue (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 27The map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 28Patrice 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 29Map of rail network (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 30Patrice Lumumba, founding member and leader of the MNC (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 31Lake Kivu in North Kivu province (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 32The Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Lubumbashi (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 33Collecting firewood in Basankusu. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 34Flag of CNDP (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 35Branhamist worshippers in Kinshasa (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 36Arab slave raid on Nyangwe, circa 1870 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 37Democratic Republic of the Congo map of Köppen climate classification (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 38Population fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebels groups, Sake North Kivu 30 April 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 39Congolese soldiers being trained by UN personnel. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 40Ndeemba Mask (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 41Force 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 42Mobutu with the Dutch Prince Bernhard in Kinshasa in 1973 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 43President 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 44View of Leopoldville Station and Port in 1884 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 45Joseph Kabila was President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from January 2001 to January 2019. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 46A woman carrying bananas. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 47Found in the Congolian rainforests, the okapi was unknown to science until 1901 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 48Map of the Kingdom of Kongo (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 49Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., 1973. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 50The 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 51Belligerents of the Second Congo War (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 52Roman Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 53Train from Lubumbashi arriving in Kindu on a newly refurbished line. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 54Breakdown of the largest ethnic groups in DRC (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 55Refugees in the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 56Masque féminin Ngaady a mwaash, XIX-XXe siècles (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)

Good article - show another

This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

Troops of the Congo Free State engage with the Mahdists at Rejaf along the Nile.

The Battle of Rejaf, also known as the Battle of Bedden, was fought on 17 February 1897 between the Belgian-led forces of the Congo Free State and Mahdist rebels in Rejaf (now in present-day South Sudan). The battle resulted in a Congolese victory and the permanent expulsion of the Mahdists from the Lado Enclave, as well as the establishment of a Belgian outpost along the Nile.

King Leopold II, the Belgian king and ruler of the Congo Free State, acquired the Lado Enclave in South Sudan from Britain in 1894 as part of a territory exchange which gave the British a strip of land along the eastern Congo for Belgian access to the navigable Nile. However, the territory was overrun with Mahdists who had established their stronghold at the town of Rejaf, which occupied a valuable position for trade along the Nile river. After a wave of new funding from the Belgian government in 1895, King Leopold ordered an expedition to be led into the Lado Enclave to expel the Mahdists and fortify Rejaf as a strategic military and trading outpost. (Full article...)

List of Good articles
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 Antoine-Roger Bolamba Jean-Chrysostome Weregemere Steve Zakuani Laurent Eketebi William Henry Sheppard Okapi

Featured article - show another

This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia..

Lihau c. 1990

Marcel Antoine Lihau or Ebua Libana la Molengo Lihau (29 September 1931 – 9 April 1999) was a Congolese jurist, law professor and politician who served as the inaugural First President of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Congo from 1968 until 1975, and was involved in the creation of two constitutions for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Lihau attended the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium with the help of sympathetic Jesuit educators, becoming one of the first Congolese to study law. While there he encouraged Congolese politicians to form an alliance that allowed them to secure the independence of the Congo from Belgium. He served briefly as a justice official and negotiator for the Congolese central government before being appointed to lead a commission to draft a permanent national constitution. He was made dean of law faculty at Lovanium University in 1963. The following year he helped deliver the Luluabourg Constitution to the Congolese, which was adopted by referendum. (Full article...)