Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo

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 the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 112 million, the DR Congo is the most populous nominally Francophone country in the world. French is the official and most widely spoken language, though there are over 200 indigenous languages. The national capital and largest city is Kinshasa, which is also the economic center. The country is bordered by the Republic of the Congo, the Cabinda exclave of Angola, and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west; the Central African Republic and South Sudan to the north; Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika) to the east; and Zambia and Angola to the south. Centered on the Congo Basin, most of the country's terrain is covered by dense rainforests and crossed by many rivers, while the east and southeast are mountainous.

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 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. In the west, the Kingdom of Kongo ruled around the mouth of the Congo River from the 14th to the 19th century. In the center and east, the empires of Mwene Muji, Luba, and Lunda ruled between the 15th and 19th centuries. These kingdoms were broken up by Europeans during the colonization of the Congo Basin. King Leopold II of Belgium acquired rights to the Congo territory in 1885 and called it the Congo Free State. In 1908, Leopold ceded the territory after international pressure in response to widespread atrocities, and it became a Belgian colony. Congo achieved independence from Belgium in 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 1965. Mobutu renamed the country Zaire in 1971 and imposed a personalist dictatorship.

Instability caused by the influx of refugees from the Rwandan Civil War into the eastern part of the country led to the First Congo War from 1996 to 1997, ending in the overthrow of Mobutu. Its name was changed back to the DRC and it 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, widely described as the deadliest conflict since World War II, ended under President Joseph Kabila, who restored relative stability to much of the country, although fighting continued at a lower level mainly in the east. Human rights remained poor, and there were frequent abuses, such as forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment and restrictions on civil liberties. Kabila stepped down in 2019, the country's first peaceful transition of power since independence, after Félix Tshisekedi won the highly contentious 2018 general election. Since the early 2000s, there have been over 100 armed groups active in the DRC, mainly concentrated in the Kivu region. One of its largest cities, Goma, was occupied by the March 23 Movement (M23) rebels briefly in 2012 and again in 2025. The M23 uprising escalated in early 2025 after the capture of multiple cities in the east, including with military support from Rwanda, which has caused a conflict between the two countries.

Despite being incredibly rich in natural resources, the DRC is one of the poorest countries in the world, having suffered from political instability, a lack of infrastructure, rampant corruption, and centuries of both commercial and colonial extraction and exploitation, followed by more than 60 years of independence, with little widespread development; the nation is a prominent example of the "resource curse". Besides the capital Kinshasa, the two next largest cities, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, are both mining communities. The DRC's largest exports are raw minerals and metal, which accounted for 80% of exports in 2023, with China being its largest trade partner. In 2024, DR Congo's level of human development was ranked 180th out of 193 countries by the Human Development Index and it is classified as being one of the least developed countries by the United Nations (UN). As of 2022^[update], following two decades of various civil wars and continued internal conflicts, around one million Congolese refugees were still living in neighbouring countries. Two million children are at risk of starvation, and the fighting has displaced 7.3 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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Deforestation in the triple border of Angola, Congo and DRC. The dense moist forest in dark green is mostly at Angola's Cabinda enclave, from image center to upper left. In light green, deforestation, mostly along Chiloango River, crossing image NE to SW on Congo-DRC border, at image top, and Cabinda-DRC border below. Savanna-forest mosaic with extensive agriculture appears in orange and orangeish light green.

Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is an environmental conflict of international importance. Most of the deforestation takes place in the Congo Basin, which has the second largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon. Roughly half the remaining rainforest in the Congo Basin is in the DRC.

There are compounding causes underlying deforestation in the DRC. Trees are slashed and burned for agriculture in the country. Illegal logging, road development and city expansion are also among some of the causes for deforestation. (Full article...)

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

Image 1A map of the major Bantu languages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 2The map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 3Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., 1973 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 4The Matadi railway station, part of the Matadi–Kinshasa Railway (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 5Rough diamonds ≈1 to 1.5 mm in size from the DR Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 6Force 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 7The Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Lubumbashi (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 8Mobutu with the Dutch Prince Bernhard in Kinshasa in 1973 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 9Flag of CNDP (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 10Children mutilated during King Leopold II's rule (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 11Refugees in the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 12Masque féminin Ngaady a mwaash, XIX-XXe siècles (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 13The leader of ABAKO, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, first democratically elected President of Congo-Léopoldville (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 14A mining site in the Haut-Katanga Province (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 15Ndeemba Mask (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 16A woman carrying bananas. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 17Franco Luambo and his OK Jazz orchestra performing live at Zaire 74 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 18View of Leopoldville Station and Port in 1884 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 19President Félix Tshisekedi with the president of neighbouring Republic of the Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso in 2020; both wear face masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 20Found in the Congolian rainforests, the okapi was unknown to science until 1901. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 21Brahmanist worshippers in Kinshasa (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 22Belligerents of the Second Congo War (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 23People fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebel groups, North Kivu, 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 24Congo Free State official Camille Coquilhat with the Bangala chief Mata-Buiké, c. 1888 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 25Lake Kivu in North Kivu province (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 26Democratic Republic of the Congo's population between 1960 and 2017 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 27A group of demobilized child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 28President Joseph Kabila with U.S. President Barack Obama in August 2014 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 29Our Lady of Peace Cathedral in Bukavu (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 30Breakdown of the largest ethnic groups in DRC (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 31Arab slave raid on Nyangwe, c. 1870 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 32Kasaï-Central province, where the Kamwina Nsapu militia clashes with security forces began. (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 33Memory Board (lukasa) - Luba Kingdom (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 34Patrice 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 351908 photograph of a married Christian couple (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 36Mobutu Sese Seko (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 37The endangered mountain gorilla; half of its population live in the DRC's Virunga National Park, making the park a critical habitat for those animals. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 38Section of National Road 1 between Boma and Moanda, Kongo Central (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 39Roman Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 40Government troops near Goma during the M23 rebellion in May 2013 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 41Abeti Masikini in 1978 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 42The four Bantu languages with elevated "national" status (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 43Ituri Rainforest (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 44A Hemba male statue (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 45Map of the Kingdom of Kongo (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 46Ugandan President Idi Amin Visits Zaire and Meets Mobutu during The Shaba I Conflict (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 47A classroom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 48Population fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebels groups, Sake North Kivu 30 April 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 49DR Congo's Human Development Index scores, 1970–2010 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 50Development of life expectancy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 51A Congolese Christian. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 52Change in per capita GDP of Congo, 1950–2018. Figures are inflation-adjusted to 2011 international dollars. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 53Congolese soldiers being trained by UN personnel (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 54Patrice Lumumba, founding member and leader of the MNC (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 55Map of the transport network in the DRC, including major rail, road, and water routes (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 56Democratic Republic of the Congo map of Köppen climate classification (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)

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Jean-Chrysostome Weregemere or Weregemere Bingwa Nyalumeke (born 5 September 1919) was a Congolese politician who led a faction of the Centre du Regroupement Africain. He served as Minister of Agriculture in the Congolese government from August 1961 until July 1962 and then as Minister of Justice until December 1962. Weregemere later held prominent positions in parastatals and sat on the central committee of the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution from 1980 until 1985.

Weregemere was born in Kivu Province, Belgian Congo. After studying with various Catholic institutions and taking courses in medicine, he entered the workforce, but frequently ran afoul of the colonial authorities for engaging in political activities. In 1958 he cofounded the Centre du Regroupement Africain (CEREA), a political party. He successfully expanded its influence and became its secretary-general, but continued to face challenges from the Belgian administration. In early 1960 he accused the leadership of CEREA of communist sympathies and created a splinter party. In the Congo's first free elections later that year Weregemere won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. In August 1961 he was appointed Minister of Agriculture. In July 1962 Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula reorganised his government and Weregemere was made Minister of Justice. The appointment was not well received by the public, and following attempts by the Adoula Government to arrest members of Parliament, Weregemere was removed from his office by a motion of censure in the Chamber in December. (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...)