50 Fun Facts About Burundi

Since 2019, which city has been the political capital of Burundi?

Gitega was the seat of Burundi's kings for centuries and sits near the centre of the country; parliament made its return as capital official in January 2019.

Which is Burundi's largest city and economic capital?

Bujumbura kept the trade when it stopped being the political capital in 2019: it is still the country's commercial hub and its main port on Lake Tanganyika.

Lake Tanganyika, on Burundi's southwestern border, holds which world record?

Longest freshwater body: Tanganyika runs more than 650 km from north to south, far enough to give four countries a shore, and only Siberia's Baikal is deeper.

Which three countries border Burundi?

Rwanda, Tanzania and DR Congo leave Burundi without a coast, so everything it trades abroad must cross a neighbour or Lake Tanganyika before it reaches a seaport.

Which European power colonised Burundi first, ruling it until the First World War?

Germany held it as a corner of its East African colony until 1916, when Belgian troops marched in during the First World War and stayed for more than four decades.

Between the wars, Burundi and its northern neighbour formed a Belgian mandate called what?

Ruanda-Urundi was run almost as a province of the Belgian Congo, under a vice governor-general, until its two kingdoms became separate countries in 1962.

What is the name of Burundi's currency?

Franc: Belgian forces brought it in 1916, and the name outlived colonial rule when Burundi began issuing its own notes in 1964.

Besides English, which European language is an official language of Burundi?

French came with the Belgian administration, and it has stayed a language of government and business ever since.

Prince Louis Rwagasore, Burundi's independence hero, was assassinated in October 1961 only weeks after what?

His party's election win gave it 58 of the 64 seats, and the gunman who shot him weeks later was acting for leaders of a rival party.

Which teenage king did Michel Micombero depose in November 1966, ending Burundi's monarchy?

Ntare V reigned for under five months, went into exile, then came home in 1972 on a promise of safety and was killed within weeks.

Melchior Ndadaye, elected in 1993, was Burundi's first what?

Hutu president, and the first chosen in a free election: soldiers from the Tutsi-led army killed him after three months, and the civil war that followed lasted twelve years.

Burundi's president Cyprien Ntaryamira was killed in April 1994 when a plane was shot down as it approached which city?

Kigali: he was flying home from a summit aboard the Rwandan president's jet, and the attack that killed them both set off the genocide in Rwanda.

Roughly how many people died in the Burundian Civil War of 1993-2005?

About 300,000 people, most of them civilians, died in fighting that outlasted a peace deal signed in 2000; the last big rebel group agreed a ceasefire only in 2006.

Which 2000 deal, mediated by Mandela and Nyerere, set out power-sharing for Burundi?

The Arusha Agreement took four years of talks, begun under Julius Nyerere and finished by Nelson Mandela after Nyerere died, and the main rebel groups still refused to sign it.

Burundi's constitution guarantees at least 30% of National Assembly seats to which group?

Women are guaranteed that minimum beside a fixed 60-40 split between Hutu and Tutsi deputies; if an election misses the quotas, extra members are co-opted to restore them.

Pierre Nkurunziza's 2015 bid for what triggered protests, a failed coup and a refugee exodus?

A third term as president broke the two-term limit in the peace deal that had ended the civil war, his opponents said; the constitutional court sided with him and he was re-elected.

In 2017 Burundi became the first country in the world to do what?

Leave the International Criminal Court: the withdrawal took effect in October 2017, yet the court kept jurisdiction over crimes committed while Burundi was a member.

Which two colours fill the four quarters of Burundi's flag around its white diagonal cross?

Red and green: the red recalls the suffering of the independence struggle and the green the hopes placed on the future, while the white cross stands for peace.

Which sacred drum symbolised the Burundian king and appeared on the national flag from 1962 to 1966?

Karyenda was held to be semi-divine: only the king could read its beats, which he turned into rules for the kingdom, so it left the flag when the monarchy fell.

The Royal Drummers of Burundi played at the very first edition of which world music festival in 1982?

WOMAD's first festival put them on stage with Echo & the Bunnymen for one song, and Joni Mitchell had already used their drumming on a 1975 album.

The traditional Burundian greeting 'Amashyo' wishes someone herds of which animal?

Cattle: cows stand for health, happiness and prosperity in Burundi, so wishing a friend whole herds of them is a way of wishing a good life.

Kirundi, spoken by nearly all Burundians, is mutually intelligible with which other language?

Kinyarwanda is close enough to Kirundi for the BBC to serve both with one radio service, started after the genocide in Rwanda to help separated families find one another.

Which two crops have long been Burundi's leading farm exports?

Coffee and tea brought in most of Burundi's foreign earnings for decades, though by 2023 gold had joined them at the top of the export list.

The southernmost source of which great river rises in the highlands of Burundi?

The Nile: the stream feeds the Kagera, which flows into Lake Victoria, though Rwanda has a rival headwater that others count as the river's true beginning.

Burundi's western edge and its shore on Lake Tanganyika lie in which geological feature?

The Great Rift Valley: its western branch holds Lake Tanganyika, which is why Burundi climbs so sharply from the shore to mountains more than 2,600 m high.

Which of these countries shares Lake Tanganyika with Burundi?

Zambia holds the lake's southern tip: the two countries share no border, yet boats from its port of Mpulungu can sail all the way to Burundi.

Which sport did Pierre Nkurunziza keep playing throughout his years as Burundi's president?

Football: a former first-division coach, he ran his own team while president and spent much of his time in office touring the country to play for it.

Gustave, a giant man-eater said to have killed hundreds around Burundi's Rusizi delta, is what kind of animal?

A crocodile: Gustave was put at about 20 feet and a ton and known by his bullet scars, though it is doubtful that one animal caused every death pinned on him.

Vénuste Niyongabo won Burundi's first Olympic medal, a gold, at the 1996 Atlanta Games in which event?

5,000 metres: he was far better known over 1,500 m and had run the longer race only a couple of times before the Games.

Francine Niyonsaba won Burundi's second Olympic medal, a silver at Rio 2016, in which event?

800 metres was closed to her in 2019 by rules on athletes with naturally high testosterone, so she moved up to long distances and came fifth in the Olympic 10,000 m.

Burundi's national team, which reached its first Africa Cup of Nations in 2019, has what nickname?

The Swallows waited decades for a major tournament, then lost all three of their group games in Egypt without scoring a single goal.

A monument at Mugere on Burundi's lakeshore marks an 1871 visit by which two famous explorers?

Livingstone and Stanley landed here by canoe soon after their famous meeting at Ujiji, on a trip to learn whether the Rusizi river flowed out of the lake.

Which church, brought by missionaries in colonial times, do most Burundians belong to?

The Roman Catholic Church counts about six in ten Burundians; its first lasting mission opened in 1898, and mission schools and hospitals carried it across the country.

How do Burundians traditionally share impeke, a home-brewed beer?

Through straws: friends and family sip the sorghum brew together from a single large container, a custom meant to show the unity of the group.

In Burundi, what kind of food is ndagala?

Small fish: ndagala are sardine-like fish from Lake Tanganyika, caught at night by crews whose lamps draw the shoals up to the nets, then often dried in the sun.

Burundi's brewery Brarudi was set up in 1955 to make which lager, also brewed in Rwanda and DR Congo?

Primus was first brought in from a brewery in the Congo; brewing in Burundi began in December 1955, and Heineken has controlled the company since 1982.

Which annual ranking placed Burundi last of 156 countries in 2018?

World Happiness Report: it ranks countries by how people rate their own lives in Gallup polls, and Burundians put theirs lower than people in war-torn Syria or Yemen did.

Like Burundi, which of these countries grew out of a kingdom that existed before colonial rule?

Lesotho began as the kingdom Moshoeshoe I built in the 1820s; like Burundi, it came through colonial rule with its old shape largely intact instead of being drawn on a European map.

Which army officer, president 1987-93 and 1996-2003 after two coups, lost the 1993 election to Ndadaye?

Pierre Buyoya accepted his defeat at the polls and handed over power, then seized it back in a second coup three years later.

Burundi joined which regional bloc, alongside Rwanda, in 2007?

The East African Community took in Burundi and Rwanda together, and membership led Burundi to add English as an official language in 2014.

Which animal's head is on the coat of arms Burundi adopted in 1966, the year it became a republic?

A lion: its head sits on a shield backed by three spears, an emblem adopted as the monarchy fell, when the royal drum was also stripped from the national flag.

Which language, not one of Burundi's three official ones, is widely used in trade along its lake shore?

Swahili is the shared trading language of the wider region, so in Burundi it is heard mostly in the lakeside towns and among the country's Muslims.

Burundi's intore dancers, once performers at the royal court, are known for which kind of dance?

A war dance: in the old kingdom dancing was taught alongside fighting skills, and the intore performed their warlike routines for the king at the great yearly festival.

Burundi's smallest units of local government are named after which landscape feature, where most rural families live?

Hills: farm families live scattered across the slopes in walled compounds instead of villages, so the hill itself became the basic unit of local life and government.

Which president, a former rebel general nicknamed "Neva", took office in June 2020 after Nkurunziza's death?

Évariste Ndayishimiye had won the May election and was due to take over in August, but he was sworn in two months early when Nkurunziza died suddenly.

What was the Burundian city of Bujumbura called during colonial rule?

Usumbura was the name on colonial maps, and the new country dropped it as soon as it became independent.

In the old Kingdom of Burundi, who were the ganwa?

Royal princes: the ganwa ruled their own domains much like feudal lords, so the kingdom was loosely held together and the king's real power covered only part of it.

Boats from Burundi's main port cross the lake to Kigoma, a port in which country?

Tanzania: from Kigoma a railway runs east to the Indian Ocean at Dar es Salaam, which is why the lake crossing has mattered so much to landlocked Burundi.

The traditional Burundian drink urwarwa is a home-made wine made from what?

Bananas: families brew urwarwa at home and bring it out for celebrations, where no important occasion passes without a shared drink.

In 2005 Burundi's government declared which Islamic holiday a public holiday?

Eid al-Fitr, the feast that ends Ramadan, was made a public holiday by a newly elected government in 2005, in a country where the recognised religious holidays had all been Christian.