Republic of the Congo

The Republic of the Congo is named for the great river along its eastern edge; from the Brazzaville waterfront, the towers of Kinshasa stand in plain view across the water. A short Atlantic shore around Pointe-Noire rises to the forested ridges of the Mayombe, then the grassy Niari valley and the sandy Batéké plateaux. Further north, astride the equator, the land sinks into Congo Basin rainforest, where flooded forests along the Sangha and parks such as Odzala-Kokoua protect gorillas and forest elephants.

The kingdom of Loango once ruled the coast and the Teke held the plateaux. In 1880 the explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza signed a treaty with the Teke ruler, the Makoko, giving France a foothold on the river, and Brazzaville became the seat of French Equatorial Africa. Thousands of forced labourers died building the Congo–Ocean Railway between 1921 and 1934. The town rallied to de Gaulle in 1940. The country won independence in August 1960 and from 1969 to 1991 was a Marxist-Leninist people’s republic.

Congolese rumba fills the bars of Poto-Poto and Bacongo, where the sapeurs of La Sape parade in immaculate designer suits. Sony Labou Tansi and Alain Mabanckou carried Congolese writing abroad. Cassava runs through the diet: its pounded leaves are stewed as saka-saka, and its fermented paste is steamed in leaves as chikwangue to eat with river fish. Offshore oil, landed at Pointe-Noire, dominates exports, and the northern forests supply okoumé and sapele hardwoods.