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 (also abbreviated as DR Congo,DRC, the DROC, and RDC (in French)) 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 105 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 map of Democratic Republic of Congo from the CIA World Factbook

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the east of the country in particular, has been described as the "Rape Capital of the World", and the prevalence and intensity of all forms of sexual violence has been described as the worst in the world. Human Rights Watch defines sexual violence as "an act of a sexual nature by force, or by threat of force or coercion", and rape as "a form of sexual violence during which the body of a person is invaded, resulting in penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the victim, with a sexual organ, or of the anal or genital opening of the victim with any object or other part of the body."

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has had a long history of unrest and instability. Although sexual violence has always occurred in the DRC in some capacity, increased rates of sexual violence coincided with the armed conflicts of the early 1990s and later. (Full article...)

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

Image 1The four Bantu languages with elevated "national" status. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 2View of Leopoldville Station and Port in 1884 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 3Ndeemba Mask (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 4Democratic Republic of the Congo map of Köppen climate classification (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 5Patrice 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 6Franco Luambo and his OK Jazz orchestra performing live at Zaire 74 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 71908 photograph of a married Christian couple. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 8Breakdown of the largest ethnic groups in DRC (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 9Congolese soldiers being trained by UN personnel. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 10Arab slave raid on Nyangwe, circa 1870 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 11A Hemba male statue (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 12A classroom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 13The Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Lubumbashi (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 14Roman Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 15Abeti Masikini in 1978 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 16Congo Free State official Camille Coquilhat with the Bangala chief Mata-Buiké in c. 1888 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 17Branhamist worshippers in Kinshasa (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 18A map of the major Bantu languages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 19Belligerents of the Second Congo War (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 20A group of demobilized child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 21Mobutu with the Dutch Prince Bernhard in Kinshasa in 1973 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 22Kasaï-Central province, where the Kamwina Nsapu militia clashes with security forces began. (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 23The 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 24The leader of ABAKO, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, first democratically elected President of Congo-Léopoldville (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 25Map of the Kingdom of Kongo (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 26The map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (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 28Mobutu Sese Seko (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 29President 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 30Change in per capita GDP of Congo, 1950–2018. Figures are inflation-adjusted to 2011 International dollars. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 31Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., 1973. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 32Ituri Rainforest (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 33A woman carrying bananas. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 34Ugandan President Idi Amin Visits Zaire and Meets Mobutu during The Shaba I Conflict (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 35Patrice Lumumba, founding member and leader of the MNC (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 36Joseph Kabila was President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from January 2001 to January 2019. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 37Masque féminin Ngaady a mwaash, XIX-XXe siècles (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 38Government troops near Goma during the M23 rebellion in May 2013 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 39Train from Lubumbashi arriving in Kindu on a newly refurbished line. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 40Flag of CNDP (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 41Refugees in the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 42Memory Board (lukasa) - Luba Kingdom (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 43Our Lady of Peace Cathedral in Bukavu (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 44Democratic Republic of the Congo's population between 1960 and 2017. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 45People fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebel groups, North Kivu, 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 46Found in the Congolian rainforests, the okapi was unknown to science until 1901 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 47Collecting firewood in Basankusu. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 48Children mutilated during King Leopold II's rule (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 49DR Congo's Human Development Index scores, 1970–2010. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 50President Joseph Kabila with U.S. President Barack Obama in August 2014 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 51A Congolese Christian. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 52Map of rail network (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 53Force 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 54Rough diamonds ≈1 to 1.5 mm in size from DR Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 55Development of life expectancy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)

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Sheppard in c. 1917

William Henry Sheppard (March 8, 1865 – November 25, 1927) was one of the earliest African Americans to become a missionary for the Presbyterian Church. He spent 20 years in Africa, primarily in and around the Congo Free State, and is best known for his efforts to publicize the atrocities committed against the Kuba and other Congolese peoples by King Leopold II's Force Publique.

Sheppard's efforts contributed to the contemporary debate on European colonialism and imperialism in the region, particularly among those of the African-American community. However, it has been noted that he traditionally received little attention in literature on the subject. (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...)