The earliest known human settlements in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been dated back to the Middle Stone Age, approximately 90,000 years ago. The first real states, such as the Kongo, the Lunda, the Luba and Kuba, appeared south of the equatorial forest on the savannah from the 14th century onwards.
Politics of the Democratic Republic of Congo take place in a framework of a republic in transition from a civil war to a semi-presidential republic.
The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo 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.
Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire, was the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1971 to 1997. Zaire was located in Central Africa and was, by area, the third-largest country in Africa, and the 11th-largest country in the world. With a population of over 23 million inhabitants, Zaire was the most populous officially Francophone country in Africa, as well as one of the most populous in Africa.
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, Zambia, Angola, the Cabinda exclave of Angola, and the South Atlantic Ocean.
Orientale Province is one of the former provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its predecessors the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo. It went through a series of boundary changes between 1898 and 2015, when it was divided into smaller units.
Congolese Civil War or Congo War may refer to any of a number of armed internal conflicts in the present-day countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo in Central Africa.
South Kasai was an unrecognised secessionist state within the Republic of the Congo which was semi-independent between 1960 and 1962. Initially proposed as only a province, South Kasai sought full autonomy in similar circumstances to the much larger neighbouring state of Katanga, to its south, during the political turmoil arising from the independence of the Belgian Congo known as the Congo Crisis. Unlike Katanga, however, South Kasai did not explicitly declare full independence from the Republic of the Congo or reject Congolese sovereignty.
The Fédération des Scouts de la République démocratique du Congo (FESCO), the national federation of eleven Scouting organizations of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was founded in 1924, and became a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) first in 1963 and again in 1981. The coeducational Fédération des Scouts de la République démocratique du Congo has 71,486 members as of 2010.
Article 2 of the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo divides the country into the capital city of Kinshasa and 25 named provinces. It also gives the capital the status of a province. Therefore, in many contexts Kinshasa is regarded as the 26th province.
Articles related to the Democratic Republic of the Congo include:
The Republic of the Congo was a sovereign state in Central Africa, created with the independence of the Belgian Congo in 1960. From 1960 to 1966, the country was also known as Congo-Léopoldville to distinguish it from its northwestern neighbor, which is also called the Republic of the Congo, alternatively known as "Congo-Brazzaville". In 1964, the state's official name was changed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the two countries continued to be distinguished by their capitals; with the renaming of Léopoldville as Kinshasa in 1966, it became also known as Congo-Kinshasa. After Joseph Désiré Mobutu, commander-in-chief of the national army, seized control of the government in 1965, the Democratic Republic of the Congo became the Republic of Zaire in 1971. It would again become the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997. The period between 1960 and 1964 is referred to as the First Congolese Republic.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire and the Belgian Congo.
Lualaba District was a district of the pre-2015 Katanga Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The district dates back to the days of the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo. The original Lualaba District was merged into Katanga in 1910, but in 1933 a new Lualaba District was formed within Katanga. After various significant boundary changes, in 2015 the district became the western part of the present Lualaba Province.
Ituri District, later Kibali-Ituri District, was a district of the Belgian Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It roughly corresponded in area to the present Ituri Province.
The geology of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is extremely old, on the order of several billion years for many rocks. The country spans the Congo Craton: a stable section of ancient continental crust, deformed and influenced by several different mountain building orogeny events, sedimentation, volcanism and the geologically recent effects of the East Africa Rift System in the east. The country's complicated tectonic past have yielded large deposits of gold, diamonds, coltan and other valuable minerals.
The Districts of the Belgian Congo were the primary administrative divisions when Belgium annexed the Congo Free State in 1908, each administered by a district commissioner. In 1914 they were distributed among four large provinces, with some boundary changes. In 1933 the provinces were restructured into six, again with boundary changes. The number of districts fluctuated between 12 and 26 through splits and consolidations, first rising, then falling, then rising again.
Stanleyville District was a district of the Belgian Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo. It went through various changes in extent. Between 1933 and 1963 it had roughly the same extent as the current Tshopo province.
