Republic of the Congo
Republic of the Congo is a country in Middle Africa, with its capital at Brazzaville, and is home to roughly 6.3M people.
Its official languages are French, Kikongo, Lingala; the currency in circulation is Central African CFA franc (Fr); people from here are called Congolese.
- »Roughly two-thirds of the country is rainforest, part of the Congo Basin, the second largest tropical forest on Earth.
Republic of the Congo straddles the equator.
Republic of the Congo touches five neighbours: Angola to the south, Cameroon to the north, Central African Republic to the northeast, DR Congo to the east and Gabon to the west. Directions run from one centre to the other.
Brazzaville is named after the explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza and faces Kinshasa across the river. It served as the capital of Free France during the Second World War.
347,756 km² (134,269 sq mi), 63rd largest of 198 countries and territories on file, almost exactly the size of Germany.
Population 6,332,961, 112th of 198 on file. That averages 18 per km² (47 per sq mi).
Pan-African colours set diagonally, an unusual arrangement adopted at independence from France in 1960, dropped under Marxist rule, then restored in 1991.