Republic of the Congo (Republic of the Congo)
Flag of the Republic of the Congo |
The region was dominated by Bantu-speaking tribes at least 3,000 years ago, who built trade links leading into the Congo River basin. Congo was formerly part of the French colony of Equatorial Africa. The Republic of the Congo was established on 28 November 1958 and gained independence from France in 1960. It was a Marxist–Leninist state from 1969 to 1992, under the name People's Republic of the Congo. The country has had multi-party elections since 1992, but a democratically elected government was ousted in the 1997 Republic of the Congo Civil War. President Denis Sassou Nguesso who first came to power in 1979 ruled until 1992 and then again from 1997 onwards.
It is a member of the African Union, the United Nations, La Francophonie, the Economic Community of Central African States, and the Non-Aligned Movement. It has become the 4th-largest oil producer in the Gulf of Guinea, providing the country with a degree of prosperity, with political and economic instability in some areas and unequal distribution of oil revenue nationwide. Its economy is dependent on the oil sector, and economic growth has slowed since the post-2015 drop in oil prices. With a population of 5.2 million, 88.5% of the country practices Christianity.
It is named after the Congo River whose name is derived from Kongo, a Bantu kingdom which occupied its mouth around the time the Portuguese first arrived in 1483 or 1484. The kingdom's name derived from its people, the Bakongo, an endonym said to mean "hunters" (mukongo, nkongo).
During the period when it was colonized by France, it was known as the French Congo or Middle Congo. To distinguish it from the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is sometimes referred to as Congo (Brazzaville) or Congo-Brazzaville. Brazzaville derives from the colony's founder, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazzà, an Italian nobleman whose title referred to the town of Brazzacco, in the comune of Moruzzo, whose name derived from the Latin Brattius or Braccius, both meaning "arm".
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
XAF | Central African CFA franc | Fr | 0 |
ISO | Language |
---|---|
FR | French language |
KG | Kongo language |
LN | Lingala language |