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Gabon: Countrys
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Gabon is a unitary republic on the west coast of Africa, south of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea and west of Congo-Brazzaville. Its capital is Libreville. Gabon's 1.23 million people have had the same president for 35 years: President Omar Albert-Bernard Bongo, born in 1935. Only two presidents have ruled Gabon since the country's independence from France in 1960. Bongo previously had served in Gabon's Foreign Ministry when independence was attained; prior to that, he had served two years in the French air force. Bongo was chief of staff and defense minister under Gabon's first head of state, President Leon Mba, becoming vice president in 1966.
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From 1910 to 1957, Gabon was a part of French Equatorial Africa. The Fang and some other African peoples resisted the imposition of French rule until 1911. In 1913, Albert Schweitzer established a hospital at Lambaréné on the Ogooué. During World War II, Free French forces gained control (1940) of Gabon from the Vichy government. In 1946, Gabon became an overseas territory of France, and in 1958 the country became internally self-governing within the French Community.
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Gabon has a population (2001 estimate) of 1,221,175. The overall population density is 5 persons per sq km (12 per sq mi). Some 54 percent of the people live in urban areas. Much of the country’s interior is uninhabited.
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While Gabon doesn't have the breadth of attractions of some of its neighbors, it does have something the others don't have: stability. Gabon's rich natural resources have made the country prosperous and secure. They've ... made it a bit pricey. Libreville, the capital, is one of Africa's (and the world's) most expensive cities.
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Gabon sits on the Equator in western Africa. Oil, timber, and manganese earn this thinly settled republic one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa. However, the income is largely based on oil money going to a few—most live by subsistence farming. France gained control starting in 1839, and Libreville (Free Town), Gabon's capital, got its name when French forces freed slaves there in 1849. With independence in 1960, it functioned mostly as a one-party state until 1991, when a new constitution brought multiparty democracy. In 2002 the country created 13 new national parks—some 11 percent of Gabon's area—to protect its forests and wildlife from logging.
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On Aug. 17, 1960, Gabon became an independent republic. Leon Mba, a Fang, was the country’s first president. In Feb., 1964, Mba was ousted by a military coup led by Jean-Hilaire Aubame, but he was restored to power within a day with the help of French troops. Mba died in 1967 and was succeeded by Omar Bongo, who established (1968) the Gabonese Democratic party (PDG) as the country’s sole political organization. Bongo was returned to office in the elections of 1973 and 1979.
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