The Republic of the Congo is a state in Central Africa, a former
colonial possession of France, from 1970 to 1991 - the People's
Republic of the Congo.
The country is bordered to the west by
Gabon, to the northwest by Cameroon and to the northeast by the
Central African Republic, to the southeast by the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, to the south by the Angolan exclave of
Cabinda, and to the southwest by the Atlantic Ocean. French is the
official language of the Republic of the Congo.
The capital
is the city of Brazzaville.
3,000 years ago, the region was
dominated by Bantu-speaking tribes who built trade links leading to
the Congo Basin. The Congo was formerly part of the French colony of
Equatorial Africa. The Republic of the Congo was formed on November
28, 1958 and gained independence from France in 1960. It was a
Marxist-Leninist state from 1969 to 1992 called the People's
Republic of the Congo. The sovereign state has held multi-party
elections since 1992, although the democratically elected government
was overthrown in the civil war in the Republic of the Congo in
1997, and President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who first came to power in
1979, has been in power for more than 4 decades.
The Republic
of the Congo is a member of the African Union, the United Nations,
the Francophone Community, the Economic Community of Central African
States and the Non-Aligned Movement. It has become the fourth
largest oil producer in the Gulf of Guinea, providing the country
with a certain degree of prosperity, despite political and economic
instability in some areas and the unequal distribution of oil
revenues throughout the country. Congo's economy is heavily
dependent on the oil sector, and economic growth has slowed
significantly since the fall in oil prices after 2015. With a
population of 5.2 million, 88.5% of the country is Christian.
geography
The Republic of the Congo is located in the extreme
north-west of the Congo Basin and is bordered to the east and south-east
by the Congo River and its tributary, the Ubangi. The capital,
Brazzaville, sits on the Pool Malebo, a sealike expanse of the Congo.
Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is on the
opposite bank.
The Republic of the Congo stretches on both sides
of the equator and therefore has a tropical climate. The two rainy
seasons occur from January to May and October to mid-December. The
annual precipitation is 1400 mm to 1900 mm, less on the coast. After the
narrow coastal plain with mangrove vegetation and wet savannah, the
country rises to a high plateau that rises to a height of 1040 m at the
border with Gabon. At 57.2 percent, the largest part of the country is
covered by tropical rainforest. In the northeast, on the lower Ubangi
and Sangha, are extensive wetlands. The Congo is only navigable above
Pool Malebo.
demographics
Republic of the Congo had 5.5 million inhabitants
in 2020. Annual population growth was +2.5%. A surplus of births
(birth rate: 32.0 per 1000 inhabitants vs. death rate: 6.5 per 1000
inhabitants) contributed to population growth. The number of births
per woman was statistically 4.3 in 2020. The median age of the
population in 2020 was 19.2 years.
ethnicities
98 percent
of Congolese see themselves as Bantus. Half of the population are
the eponymous Congo, of which more than 40 percent Bakongo as well
as Vili or Bavili (on the Atlantic). A quarter are Batéké with six
percent and Bavili. Of the remaining quarter, the Mboschi make up
the largest share with twelve percent and the Kuyu with eleven
percent. Only one percent are pygmies - mainly in the forest and
swamp areas of the northeast, and there are few Europeans.
In
2017, 7.6% of the population was foreign-born. The largest group
came from neighboring DR Congo with 170,000 people. Foreigners are
either refugees or are attracted by the comparatively high income
level.
Languages
French is – as a legacy of the colonial
era – the official language. In addition, the lingua franca Lingala
and Kituba are recognized as “national lingua francas” in the
constitution of the Republic of the Congo. Lingala is most
widespread in the north, which is spoken by half of the total
population. Kituba, on the other hand, also known as Kongo ya Leta,
is spoken primarily by the Bakongo in the south of the country, but
also serves as a lingua franca. The most important languages of the
individual ethnic groups are the conventional Kikongo as well as
Mbosi, Koyo and Teke.
religions
The majority of the total
population of the Republic of Congo is Christian (about 33.1 percent
Catholic, 22.3 percent Revivalist/Christian Revival, 19.9 percent
Protestant, 2.2 percent Salvationist, about 1.5 percent Kimbanguist,
and New Apostolic Christians). Another large part of the population
adheres to traditional religions and around 1.6 percent now belong
to smaller Muslim communities. 11.3 percent of the population are
non-denominational.
In 1950, the first magazine for politics and culture (Liaison) was
founded in Brazzaville. also published evidence of oral culture. Today
in the Republic of Congo there is a relatively developed literary and
theater scene, especially in Brazzaville but also in Pointe Noire, which
is shaped by the French realists and by the Nouveau Roman as well as by
folk traditions, fairy tales, surrealism and magic. In his novels Demain
j'aurais vingt ans and Les cigognes sont immortelles, the author Alain
Mabanckou tells of a youth in Pointe Noire against the background of the
country's recent history. Above all, the theater builds on village
storytelling traditions. Mention should be made, inter alia, the
collaborator of the liaison and playwright Sylvain Bemba, the chemist
and novelist Emmanuel Dongala (b. 1941), who now lives in the USA (group
photo on the riverbank) and the former Prime Minister and novelist Henri
Lopès, a critic of Négritude (Tribaliques, 1971 ).
In the
multicultural Poto-Poto district of Brazzaville, populated by migrant
workers from the north at the beginning of the 20th century, a painting
tradition of its own developed (Marcel Gotène, Eugène Malonga, Jacques
Zigoma). Brazzaville had a fine artistic pottery tradition, but it has
largely been forgotten. The State Art National Museum has been closed
for years, but has an extensive inventory of valuable anthropological
objects and contemporary paintings. Traditional themes dominate in music
and dance. Gestures and facial expressions make it easier to understand
language in a multicultural environment.