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, or more infrequently Zaire (its name from 1971 to 1997) 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 is 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. A peace agreement brokered by the United States was signed by Rwanda and the DRC on 27 June 2025.

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. For 2023, DR Congo's level of human development was ranked 171st 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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General elections were held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 30 December 2018 to determine a successor to outgoing president Joseph Kabila, as well as for the 500 seats of the National Assembly and the 715 elected seats of the 26 provincial assemblies. Félix Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress won the presidency with 38.6% of the vote, defeating Martin Fayulu of the Dynamic of the Opposition and independent candidate Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. Fayulu alleged that the vote was rigged against him by Tshisekedi and Kabila, challenging the result in the Constitutional Court. Election observers, including the Catholic Church, also cast doubt on the official result. Nonetheless, on 20 January the Court declared Tshisekedi the winner. Parties supporting Kabila won the majority of seats in the National Assembly. Tshisekedi was sworn in as the fifth president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 24 January 2019, the first peaceful transition of power in the country since its independence from Belgium in 1960.

According to the constitution, the second and final term of President Kabila expired on 20 December 2016. General elections were originally scheduled for 27 November 2016, but were delayed with a promise to hold them by the end of 2017. This promise was subsequently broken, but after both international and internal pressure the elections were finally scheduled for 23 December 2018. They were, however, postponed for a week on 30 December 2018 due to a fire in the electoral commission's warehouse in Kinshasa destroying 8,000 electronic voting machines. (Full article...)

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

Image 1Map of the transport network in the DRC, including major rail, road, and water routes (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 2President 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 3People fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebel groups, North Kivu, 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 4President Joseph Kabila with U.S. President Barack Obama in August 2014 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 5Belligerents of the Second Congo War (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 6Congolese soldiers being trained by UN personnel (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 7Children mutilated during King Leopold II's rule (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 8A map of the major Bantu languages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 9Memory Board (lukasa) - Luba Kingdom (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 10The Matadi railway station, part of the Matadi–Kinshasa Railway (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 11Patrice 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 12A Hemba male statue (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 13Government troops near Goma during the M23 rebellion in May 2013 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 14Roman Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 15The Democratic Republic of the Congo speaks a variant of Belgian French (dark red), compared to other parts of Africa (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 16Breakdown of the largest ethnic groups in DRC (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 17Ndeemba Mask (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 18Ituri Rainforest (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 19A woman carrying bananas. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 20Flag of CNDP (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 21A group of demobilized child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 22Our Lady of Peace Cathedral in Bukavu (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 23Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., 1973 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 24Change in per capita GDP of Congo, 1950–2018. Figures are inflation-adjusted to 2011 international dollars. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 25The leader of ABAKO, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, first democratically elected President of Congo-Léopoldville (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 26A classroom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 27A Congolese Christian. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 28DR Congo's Human Development Index scores, 1970–2010 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 29Kasaï-Central province, where the Kamwina Nsapu militia clashes with security forces began. (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 30Refugees in the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 31Development of life expectancy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 32The 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 33Section of National Road 1 between Boma and Moanda, Kongo Central (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 34Population fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebels groups, Sake North Kivu 30 April 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 35The four Bantu languages with elevated "national" status (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 36Ugandan President Idi Amin Visits Zaire and Meets Mobutu during The Shaba I Conflict (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 37Franco Luambo and his OK Jazz orchestra performing live at Zaire 74 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 38The Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Lubumbashi (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 391908 photograph of a married Christian couple (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 40Found in the Congolian rainforests, the okapi was unknown to science until 1901. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 41Mobutu Sese Seko (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 42Patrice Lumumba, founding member and leader of the MNC (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 43Rough diamonds ≈1 to 1.5 mm in size from the DR Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 44Map of the Kingdom of Kongo (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 45The map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 46Democratic Republic of the Congo map of Köppen climate classification (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 47Abeti Masikini in 1978 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 48A mining site in the Haut-Katanga Province (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 49Mobutu with the Dutch Prince Bernhard in Kinshasa in 1973 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 50Force 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 51Brahmanist worshippers in Kinshasa (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 52Masque féminin Ngaady a mwaash, XIX-XXe siècles (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 53Lake Kivu in North Kivu province (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 54Democratic Republic of the Congo's population between 1960 and 2017 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)

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Male okapi at Beauval Zoo

The okapi (/oʊˈkɑːpi/; Okapia johnstoni), also known as the forest giraffe, Congolese giraffe and zebra giraffe, is an artiodactyl mammal that is endemic to the northeast Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa. However, non-invasive genetic identification has suggested that a population has occurred south-west of the Congo River as well. It is the only species in the genus Okapia. Although the okapi has striped markings reminiscent of zebras, it is most closely related to the giraffe. The okapi and the giraffe are the only living members of the family Giraffidae.

The okapi stands about 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) tall at the shoulder and has a typical body length around 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in). Its weight ranges from 200 to 350 kg (440 to 770 lb). It has a long neck, and large, flexible ears. Its coat is a chocolate to reddish brown, much in contrast with the white horizontal stripes and rings on the legs, and white ankles. Male okapis have short, distinct horn-like protuberances on their heads called ossicones, less than 15 cm (5.9 in) in length. Females possess hair whorls, and ossicones are absent. (Full article...)

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Jason Sendwe (1917 – 19 June 1964) was a Congolese politician and the founder and leader of the General Association of the Baluba of the Katanga (BALUBAKAT) party. He later served as Second Deputy Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Republic of the Congo) from August 1961 until January 1963, and as President of the Province of North Katanga from September 1963 until his death, with a brief interruption.

Sendwe was born in 1917 in Mwanya, Kabongo Territory, Belgian Congo, to an ethnic Baluba family. He was educated in Methodist schools and nursing institutions. Unable to become a doctor due to a lack of medical schools in the Congo, he found work as a minister, teacher, and nurse. He became involved in several cultural organisations, and in 1957 founded BALUBAKAT to fight for the interests of the Baluba. He espoused Congolese nationalism and believed that the Congo should remain a united country after Belgian rule. In May 1960, shortly before the country's independence, he was elected to the newly constituted Chamber of Deputies. Sendwe sought to obtain control over the government of Katanga Province, but lost to a power struggle against his rival, Moïse Tshombe, and the Confederation of Tribal Associations of Katanga (CONAKAT) party. Regardless, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba nominated him for the office of State Commissioner for Katanga. (Full article...)