Central African Republic

The Central African Republic sits on a rolling plateau near the middle of the continent, a divide that sends its rivers two ways: south to the Ubangi, and on to the Congo and the Atlantic, or north to the Chari and Lake Chad. Wooded savanna covers most of the land. In the south-west, the Dzanga-Sangha forest has a clearing where forest elephants gather in dozens to dig for minerals.

Megaliths near Bouar were raised by a people whose name is lost. In the nineteenth century slave raiders from neighbouring sultanates emptied whole districts. France founded a post at Bangui in 1889 and ruled the territory as Ubangi-Shari, leasing much of it to concession companies that forced people to collect rubber. Barthélemy Boganda led the independence movement and proposed the country’s name, but died in a plane crash in 1959, the year before independence. Jean-Bédel Bokassa seized power in 1966, crowned himself emperor in 1977 and was overthrown two years later.

The Aka people of the south-western forests hunt with nets and sing in interlocking polyphony that UNESCO has honoured. Banda, Gbaya and Zande farmers grow cassava, pounded into a stiff paste called gozo and eaten with koko leaves, peanut sauce or smoked fish. Diamonds dug by hand from river gravels around Berbérati and Carnot, sapele and other hardwoods, cotton and coffee are the chief exports, and in the wet season barges carry goods down the Ubangi to Brazzaville.