47 Fun Facts About Republic of the Congo

Which 1942 Hollywood classic ends with its heroes bound for the Congolese capital?

Casablanca ends with Captain Renault suggesting that he and Rick lie low at the garrison in the Congolese capital; a sequel named after that city was announced but never made.

The Congolese capital sits directly across the Congo River from which other national capital?

Kinshasa, capital of the DR Congo, faces the Congolese capital across the river, yet as of 2025 no bridge joined them: one has been planned for years, so the crossing is made by boat.

Which dance music, shared by both Congos, joined UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2021?

Rumba, in its Congolese form, was listed on a joint bid by the two Congos; it took shape when local bands absorbed imported Caribbean records, music whose own roots enslaved Africans had carried across the Atlantic.

By what nickname is the Republic of the Congo told apart from its larger neighbour across the river?

Congo-Brazzaville takes its capital's name to set the smaller republic apart from the far larger Democratic Republic of the Congo across the river.

Which of these countries shares a land border with the Republic of the Congo?

Cameroon touches the Congo's far north-west, one of only five land neighbours; Nigeria, Chad and Zambia are each cut off from it by at least one other country.

The Congolese capital is named after an explorer for France who was born in which country?

Italy: born Pietro Savorgnan di Brazzà, the son of a count from Friuli, he grew up in papal Rome, studied in Paris, joined the French navy and took French citizenship before his Congo expeditions.

Which virus wiped out thousands of gorillas in the Congo's north-western forests in the early 2000s?

Ebola killed at least 5,000 gorillas in and around one north-western sanctuary, more than nine in ten of those in its path, spreading from one gorilla group to the next.

During World War II, the Congolese capital served as the symbolic capital of what?

Brazzaville became the symbolic capital of Free France in 1940 after French Equatorial Africa rallied to de Gaulle, and the 1944 Brazzaville Conference went on to reshape French colonial policy.

In 1969 the Congo became the first country in Africa to declare itself what?

A Marxist-Leninist state was what the People's Republic of the Congo called itself until the ruling party dropped Marxism in 1990; multi-party elections followed in 1992.

Which organisation chose the Congo's president as its chairman in January 2006?

The African Union picked him as a compromise: members were split over Sudan's bid for the chair, so the Congo's leader was chosen instead.

The daughter of Congo's long-serving president married which neighbouring head of state in 1989?

Edith Lucie Sassou Nguesso married Gabon's Omar Bongo in 1989 and served as his first lady until her death in 2009, binding the two oil-producing neighbours for two decades.

Who was the first President of the Republic of the Congo, from independence in 1960?

Fulbert Youlou, a former Catholic priest and fervent anti-communist, became the first president at independence in 1960 and was toppled by the three-day 'Trois Glorieuses' uprising in August 1963.

President Marien Ngouabi, who proclaimed the People's Republic, met what fate in March 1977?

He was assassinated in Brazzaville on 18 March 1977; a military committee of his own party took over, with Joachim Yhombi-Opango as head of state.

The private militia that fought for Sassou Nguesso in the 1997 civil war was known by what name?

The Cobras were his own militia, some 8,000 strong and recruited mostly in the thinly peopled north, his home region; they fought the government's forces in the capital from June 1997.

Which country's army invaded the Congo in October 1997 to install Sassou Nguesso in power?

Angola sent troops across the border in October 1997 and tipped the war to Sassou Nguesso; Pascal Lissouba's elected government fell, and Sassou took office as president on 25 October.

The Congolese flag is a yellow diagonal band separating triangles of which two colours?

Green and red triangles flank the yellow band; adopted in 1959, the flag was replaced by a Soviet-style red banner under the People's Republic and restored in 1991.

On the People's Republic of the Congo's flag, which tool took the sickle's place beside the hammer?

A hoe crossed the hammer under a gold star, wreathed in palm branches on a plain red field; the flag flew from 1970 until the regime fell in 1991 and the old tricolour came back.

What is the second-largest city and main economic centre of the Republic of the Congo?

Pointe-Noire grew from a fishing village into the republic's port and oil hub after it was chosen in 1923 as the ocean end of the railway from the capital.

Which chain of rapids begins on the Congo River just downstream of the Congolese capital?

Livingstone Falls honours a man who never saw them: Stanley named the 350 km run of rapids for David Livingstone, who explored only the upper river; they bar ships from the sea.

The Congo-Ocean Railway links the capital with the coast over roughly what distance?

About 500 km of track (502 on the timetable) bypass the rapids of the lower river, so cargo brought down by boat from the interior can go on by rail to an ocean port.

The Congo-Ocean Railway, built after World War I, cost at least how many lives?

At least 14,000 lives is the low estimate and others exceed 17,000: forced labourers were marched in from as far as present-day Chad and the Central African Republic to build the line between 1921 and 1934.

The Congo River is Africa's second-longest and holds which global title?

Deepest ever recorded: soundings of about 220 metres in the lower river, deep and fast enough to split fish populations apart so that separate species have evolved side by side.

The Congo River is the only major river in the world to do what?

Cross the equator twice is what its great arc does, so part of the basin is always in a rainy season and the river's flow stays unusually steady all year.

Which Portuguese explorer was the first European to reach the mouth of the Congo?

Diogo Cão reached the Congo's mouth in the early 1480s and raised a stone pillar there to claim it for Portugal; centuries of coastal trade, including in enslaved people, followed before colonisation began.

Which international organisation did the Republic of the Congo join in 2018?

OPEC admitted the Congo in June 2018, by which time oil had long since replaced forestry as the mainstay of the economy.

In 2004 a certification scheme expelled the Congo over suspected smuggling of which export?

Most diamonds the Congo exported were suspected of being smuggled in from the DR Congo, so the Kimberley Process expelled it in 2004; it was readmitted in 2007.

Alongside French, which two languages are national languages of the Republic of the Congo?

Kituba and Lingala are the two national languages beside official French; Kituba is a lingua franca built on Kikongo, which is why across the river it is called Kikongo ya leta.

The Congo's long-ruling president belongs to which northern ethnic group, the country's third largest?

Mbochi people are only about 13% of the population, far behind the southern Kongo at roughly 40%, yet a Mbochi officer took the presidency in 1979 and, voted out in 1992, fought his way back in 1997.

Which NBA shot-blocker, a 2019 champion with Toronto, was born in the Congolese capital?

Serge Ibaka left Brazzaville as a teenager to play in Spain, took Spanish citizenship in 2011 and won Olympic silver with Spain a year later, well before his title with the Raptors.

In 2010 the Congolese parliament adopted Africa's first law of what kind?

The 2010 law on indigenous peoples' rights was Africa's first of its kind, responding to reports that some Pygmies were held by Bantu families in relationships described as slavery.

Which side did Congo beat 3-2 in the 1972 Africa Cup of Nations final?

Mali led at half-time before Jean-Michel M'Bono scored twice in three minutes; Congo had already put out the tournament's hosts in the semi-final on the way to a first continental title.

How did the Congo win the 1965 All-Africa Games football final after a 0-0 draw?

On corners won: after 0-0 and two periods of extra time, the title went to the hosts for forcing more corner kicks, seven to two by most records.

La Sape, a Congolese subculture, abbreviates a French phrase meaning what?

Society of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People renders Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes; its code covers conduct as well as dress: one of its ten 'commandments' forbids violence and insolence.

Congolese novelist Alain Mabanckou won the Prix Renaudot for which book?

Memoirs of a Porcupine took the 2006 Prix Renaudot by six votes to five on the tenth round of voting; the novel reworks a folk tale into the story of a young man's descent into violence.

Roughly how many previously unknown western lowland gorillas did 2006-07 surveys find in Congo's northern swamps?

About 125,000 gorillas turned up in Wildlife Conservation Society surveys of the swamp forests around Lake Télé, kept from human contact by terrain the researchers called 'inhospitable'.

Which Congolese national park, protected since 1935, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023?

Odzala-Kokoua, among Africa's oldest parks, was listed in 2023 for the way its rainforest meets open savanna, a mix that shelters forest elephants and great apes.

Lake Télé in northern Congo is best known as the supposed home of which legendary creature?

Mokele-mbembe, a supposed surviving sauropod, is said to lurk in Lake Télé; the 'living dinosaur' has drawn expeditions often funded by young-Earth creationists hoping to upset evolutionary science.

The Kingdom of Loango on the Congolese coast was a major exporter of copper and what?

Loango's weavers produced raffia cloth that, with copper from the interior, made the kingdom a major exporter; at its 17th-century height its influence stretched from Cape St Catherine almost to the Congo's mouth.

French Equatorial Africa comprised the Congo, Gabon, Chad and which fourth territory?

Oubangui-Chari took its name from the Ubangi and Chari rivers and later became the Central African Republic; the federation was run from the Congolese capital.

From 1903 until 1958, the French colony that became the Republic of the Congo was known by what name?

Middle Congo, or Moyen-Congo, was one of four colonies in French Equatorial Africa; in 1958 its voters chose autonomy within the French Community, two years ahead of full independence.

What is the Republic of the Congo's two-letter internet country code?

.cg belongs to the smaller republic; .cd went to the DR Congo in 1997, replacing the .zr it had used while it was called Zaire.

Which oil-rich exclave meets the southern end of the Congo's short Atlantic coast?

Cabinda is cut off from its mother country by the DR Congo's narrow corridor to the sea, so the republic's 170 km of coast ends at a province with no land link to its own capital.

In the mid-1960s the Congolese government invited troops from which country to train its party militia?

Cuba sent troops in 1965 to train the ruling party's militia, and during a failed coup attempt in 1966 they sheltered members of the government until it could return to power.

A 2018 declaration committed both Congos and Indonesia to protecting what?

Tropical peatlands beneath the Congo Basin's swamp forest were mapped only in 2017; they store carbon equal to about three years of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, hence the pact to protect them.

Which 1960s president of Congo made 'scientific socialism' the constitutional ideology?

Alphonse Massamba-Débat, president from 1963 to 1968, made 'scientific socialism' the state creed, set up a single ruling party in 1964 and kept to a non-capitalist path until Marien Ngouabi's coup ousted him.

The 1997 civil war rebels who returned to fight in the Pool region in 2016 were known by what name?

The Ninjas, Pastor Ntumi's militia, took their name from Japan's famous warriors; after the disputed 2016 election an army offensive in Pool displaced some 80,000 people before a ceasefire in December 2017.

Which currency does the Republic of the Congo use?

The Central African CFA franc is shared with five other Central African states and pegged to the euro, whereas the Congolese franc is the money of the DR Congo across the river.