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Congo: Congo Basin
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Until the middle of the 19th century, the Congo was on the edge of unexplored Africa, as Europeans seldom ventured into its interior. The rainforest, swamps and attendant malaria, and other diseases such as sleeping sickness made it a difficult environment for European exploration and exploitation. Imperialists were at first reluctant to colonize the area in the absence of obvious economic benefits. King Leopold managed to secure it in 1885 through his private efforts, ruling the state personally until its annexation by the government of Belgium in 1908. Other powers vied with Leopold for the land when natural resources, first rubber, and then copper and other minerals in the upper Lualaba River basin, were discovered.
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Straddling the Equator, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the third largest country in Africa (after Sudan and Algeria). The mighty Congo River flows north and then south through a land rich in minerals, fertile farmlands, and rain forests. The country has a tiny coast on the Atlantic Ocean, just enough to accommodate the mouth of the Congo River. The forested Congo River basin occupies 60 percent of the nation's area, creating a central region that is a communication barrier between the capital, Kinshasa, in the west, the mountainous east, and the southern mineral-rich highlands. As many as 250 ethnic groups speaking some 700 local languages and dialects endure one of the world’s lowest living standards. War, government corruption, neglected public services, and depressed copper and coffee markets are contributing factors.
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Formed by the junction of the Lualaba and Luvua rivers in southern DRC, the Congo flows generally north as far as Stanley Falls, then loops west and south to an outlet on the South Atlantic Ocean. The river is as wide as 16 km (10 mi) in places and contains more than 4,000 islands. The Congo River Basin includes most of DRC, Republic of the Congo, northern Angola, northern Zambia, western Tanzania, and southern Central African Republic. The region is densely covered with tropical vegetation, particularly in the river valleys. The rich wildlife of the river includes crocodiles and numerous species of fish.
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At the Conference of Berlin (1884–85) the European powers recognized Leopold’s claim to the Congo basin, and in a ceremony (1885) at Banana, the king announced the establishment of the Congo Free State, headed by himself. The announced boundaries were roughly the same as those of present-day Congo, but it was not until the mid-1890s that Leopold’s control was established in most parts of the state. In 1891–92, Katanga was conquered, and between 1892 and 1894, E Congo was wrested from the control of E African Arab and Swahili traders (including Tippu Tib, who for a time had served as an administrator of the Congo).
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Early in his rule, the second problem — the British South Africa Company's expansionism into the southern Congo Basin — was addressed. The distant Yeke Kingdom in Katanga on the upper Lualaba River had signed no treaties, and was known to be rich in copper and thought to have gold. Its powerful mwami (king), Msiri, had already rejected a treaty brought by Alfred Sharpe on behalf of Rhodes. In 1891 a Free State expedition extracted a letter from Msiri agreeing to their agents coming to Katanga, and later that year Leopold sent the well-armed Stairs Expedition to take possession of Katanga one way or another. Msiri tried to play the Free State off against Rhodes, and when negotiations bogged down, Stairs flew the Free State flag anyway, and gave Msiri an ultimatum. Instead, Msiri decamped to another stockade, Stairs sent a force to arrest him, but he stood his ground, whereupon Captain Omer Bodson shot Msiri dead and was fatally wounded in the resulting fight.[5] The expedition cut off Msiri's head and put it on a pole,[3] after which the replacement chief installed by Stairs signed the treaty.
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Congo was known from 1971 to 1997 as Zaire, an attempt by then-ruler Mobutu Sese Seko to return to the source of the nation's identity and authenticity. After Mobutu's overthrow in 1997... the name of the country before 1971, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was restored. “Zaire” is a variation of traditional African names for great rivers and specifically the Congo River, whose basin lies almost entirely within the republic. The river was named during the colonial period for the kingdom of the Kongo people, who inhabit the area along the river's mouth on the Atlantic Ocean.
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Congo Basin