24 | The Lion King
The Republic of the
Congo
T
he Republic of the Congo also
known as Congo Republic or
Congo-Brazzaville, is a country
located in Central Africa. It is bordered
by Gabon, Cameroon, the Central
African Republic, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo and the
Angolan exclave of Cabinda.
The region was dominated by Bantu-
speaking tribes, who built trade links
leading into the Congo River basin.
Congo-Brazzaville was formerly part of
the French colony of Equatorial Africa.
Upon independence in 1960, the former
colony of French Congo became the
Republic of the Congo.
Bantu-speaking people who founded
tribes during the Bantu expansions
largely displaced and absorbed the
earliest inhabitants of the region, the
Pygmy people, in about 1500 BC. The
Bakongo, a Bantu ethnicity that also
occupied parts of present-day Angola,
Gabon and Democratic Republic of
the Congo, formed the basis for ethnic
affinities and rivalries among those
countries.
