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 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 112 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 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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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...)

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

Image 1Train from Lubumbashi arriving in Kindu on a newly refurbished line. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 2Force 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 3Patrice Lumumba, founding member and leader of the MNC (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 4View of Leopoldville Station and Port in 1884 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 5Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., 1973. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 6DR Congo's Human Development Index scores, 1970–2010. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 7A classroom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 8Refugees in the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 9Democratic Republic of the Congo's population between 1960 and 2017. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 10Patrice 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 11Government troops near Goma during the M23 rebellion in May 2013 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 12Rough diamonds ≈1 to 1.5 mm in size from DR Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 13A Hemba male statue (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 14The four Bantu languages with elevated "national" status. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 15Collecting firewood in Basankusu. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 16The leader of ABAKO, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, first democratically elected President of Congo-Léopoldville (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 17Development of life expectancy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 18The Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Lubumbashi (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 19Children mutilated during King Leopold II's rule (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 20The 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 21A Congolese Christian. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 22The map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 23A group of demobilized child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 24Flag of CNDP (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 25Breakdown of the largest ethnic groups in DRC (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 26Abeti Masikini in 1978 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 27Population fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebels groups, Sake North Kivu 30 April 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 28Branhamist worshippers in Kinshasa (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 29Democratic Republic of the Congo map of Köppen climate classification (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 30Joseph Kabila was President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from January 2001 to January 2019. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 31Map of the Kingdom of Kongo (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 32Our Lady of Peace Cathedral in Bukavu (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 33Mobutu Sese Seko (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 34Congo Free State official Camille Coquilhat with the Bangala chief Mata-Buiké in c. 1888 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 35Map of rail network (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 36Ugandan President Idi Amin Visits Zaire and Meets Mobutu during The Shaba I Conflict (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 371908 photograph of a married Christian couple. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 38Change in per capita GDP of Congo, 1950–2018. Figures are inflation-adjusted to 2011 International dollars. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 39President 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 40Kasaï-Central province, where the Kamwina Nsapu militia clashes with security forces began. (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 41Masque féminin Ngaady a mwaash, XIX-XXe siècles (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 42President Joseph Kabila with U.S. President Barack Obama in August 2014 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 43Ndeemba Mask (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 44Mobutu with the Dutch Prince Bernhard in Kinshasa in 1973 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 45Memory Board (lukasa) - Luba Kingdom (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 46People fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebel groups, North Kivu, 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 47Roman Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 48Found in the Congolian rainforests, the okapi was unknown to science until 1901 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 49Franco Luambo and his OK Jazz orchestra performing live at Zaire 74 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 50Arab slave raid on Nyangwe, circa 1870 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 51A woman carrying bananas. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 52Belligerents of the Second Congo War (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 53Congolese soldiers being trained by UN personnel. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 54Ituri Rainforest (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 55A map of the major Bantu languages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Culture of the 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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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...)