Republic of the Congo

The lower Congo was part of the sphere of the Kingdom of Kongo and of the Loango and Teke states, all deeply entangled in the Atlantic slave trade through the coastal ports. France established control in the 1880s, when the explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza secured treaties on the north bank of Congo River and founded Brazzaville, which became the capital of the whole of French Equatorial Africa.

Independence came in 1960. After a few turbulent years the country turned sharply left, becoming a one-party Marxist-Leninist state — the People's Republic of the Congo — closely aligned with the Soviet bloc from 1969. Denis Sassou Nguesso first became president in 1979.

A move to multiparty democracy in the early 1990s ended badly: disputed elections and rival political militias led to civil wars in 1993–94 and, more destructively, 1997–99, the latter returning Sassou Nguesso to power by force. He has governed ever since, winning further terms after a 2015 referendum removed presidential term and age limits. The economy rises and falls with the price of oil, which provides the bulk of government revenue.

The population is overwhelmingly Bantu, with the Kongo peoples of the south and the coast the largest group, the Teke of the central plateau, the Mbochi of the north — the president's group — and Aka and other forest hunter-gatherers in the far north. Most Congolese are Christian, with substantial numbers in independent and revivalist churches, alongside enduring traditional beliefs.

Music is the great shared culture, and it crosses the river: Congolese rumba, which grew up in the bars of Brazzaville and Kinshasa in the mid-twentieth century and spread across Africa, is recognised by UNESCO, and the two Congos share its stars and its evolutions into soukous and ndombolo. Sharp dress — the sapeur subculture of elegantly suited men — is a Brazzaville tradition as much as a Kinshasa one.

Social life runs on the extended family, the church, the neighbourhood bar, and football, with long greetings and hospitality expected.

The country is unusually urban for Central Africa: more than half the population lives in Brazzaville or Pointe-Noire, connected by the single railway line and a slowly improving road. Brazzaville faces Kinshasa across the Congo River, the two capitals closer together than any other pair in the world.

Oil, pumped offshore near Pointe-Noire, dominates the economy and the state budget, but has done little for most people; poverty is widespread, public services are weak, and debt is high. Outside the cities, people farm cassava, plantain, and groundnuts, fish the rivers, and work in logging, which is the other big industry in the vast northern forests.

Daily life features crowded shared taxis and minibuses, riverside markets, power and water cuts, and a strong Friday-to-Sunday social rhythm of church and music.

Congolese cooking is built on cassava — as fufu, as chikwangue (a dense loaf steamed in leaves), and as young leaves pounded and simmered into saka-saka — eaten with grilled or smoked fish, chicken, or bushmeat in a tomato or groundnut sauce. Plantain, both ripe and green, is the other staple.

Poulet moambé — chicken cooked in a sauce of palm-fruit pulp with chilli and sometimes okra — is the dish most often called national, shared with the DR Congo and Angola. Freshwater fish from the Congo and its tributaries, grilled or in a maboké parcel of leaves, is central near the river.

Palm wine and locally brewed beer are the traditional drinks; imported lager is popular in the cities, and strong sweet coffee and bissap juice are common.

The Republic of the Congo's stand-out draw is wildlife in the northern rainforest. Odzala-Kokoua National Park protects lowland rainforest and forest clearings (bais) where western lowland gorillas, forest elephants, forest buffalo, and bongo can be seen; several habituated gorilla groups can be tracked with guides, and the park has a small number of comfortable lodges.

Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, part of the Sangha Trinational World Heritage Site shared with Cameroon and the Central African Republic, is one of the least disturbed blocks of forest in the Congo Basin, home to gorillas, chimpanzees, and the elephants and other animals that gather at the famous Mbeli and Wali Bai clearings.

Closer to the capital, the Lésio-Louna reserve on the Batéké Plateau runs a gorilla reintroduction project amid a landscape of grassland, gallery forest, and gorges. Brazzaville itself has the riverside Corniche looking across to Kinshasa, the Basilica of Sainte-Anne, and a lively music and nightlife scene; Pointe-Noire adds ocean beaches and the faded architecture of a colonial port.