The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo, and formerly named Zaire, is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is the second-largest country in Africa and the eleventh-largest in the world. With a population of about 124 million people, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the fourth-most populous country in Africa and the most populous Francophone country in the world. French is the official and most widely spoken language. There are over 200 indigenous languages, of which Lingala is the most widely spoken. The capital, largest city, and economic center is Kinshasa. The DRC is bordered by the Republic of the Congo, the Cabinda exclave of Angola, and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west; the Central African Republic and South Sudan to the north; Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika) to the east; and Zambia and Angola to the south. Centered on the Congo Basin, most of the DRC's terrain is covered by dense rainforests and is crossed by many rivers. The east and southeast are mountainous.
The territory of the Congo was first inhabited by Central African foragers around 90,000 years ago and was settled in the Bantu expansion about 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. In the west, the Kingdom of Kongo ruled around the mouth of the Congo River from the 14th to the 19th century. In the center and east, the empires of Mwene Muji, Luba, and Lunda ruled between the 15th and 19th centuries. These kingdoms were broken up by Europeans during the colonization of the Congo Basin. King Leopold II of Belgium acquired rights to the Congo territory in 1885 and called it the Congo Free State. In 1908, Leopold ceded the territory after international pressure in response to widespread atrocities, and it became a Belgian colony. Congo achieved independence from Belgium in 1960 and was immediately confronted by secessionist movements, the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, and the seizure of power by Mobutu Sese Seko in 1965. Mobutu renamed the country Zaire in 1971 and imposed a personalist dictatorship.
Instability caused by an influx of refugees from the Rwandan Civil War led to the First Congo War, from 1996 to 1997, which ended with Mobutu's overthrow. The country's name was changed, and it experienced the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2003, which resulted in an estimated several million deaths and the assassination of President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The war ended under President Joseph Kabila, who restored relative stability. Human rights remained poor, and there were frequent abuses, such as forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment and restrictions on civil liberties. Kabila stepped down in 2019 after Félix Tshisekedi won the contentious 2018 election, marking the country's first peaceful transition of power since independence. Over 120 armed groups remain active, concentrated in the east. One of the region's largest cities, Goma, was occupied by the M23 rebels in 2012 and again since 2025. The M23 uprising escalated in 2025 with military support from Rwanda, which has caused a conflict between the two countries.
Despite being rich in natural resources, the DRC is one of the world's poorest and least developed countries, having suffered from political instability, lack of infrastructure, rampant corruption, and centuries of commercial and colonial extraction and exploitation.BBC. (9 October 2013). "DR Congo: Cursed by its natural wealth". BBC News website Retrieved 9 December 2017.Tshinu, G. M. (2022). Unpacking the resource curse and realism challenges on economic development in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Case of gecamines . In Handbook of research on resource management and the struggle for water sustainability in Africa (pp. 318–336). IGI Global Scientific Publishing. The nation is a prominent example of the "resource curse". Aside from Kinshasa, the next largest cities, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, are mining communities. DRC's main exports are raw minerals and metal, which accounted for 80% of exports in 2023, with China being its largest trade partner. The DRC's level of human development was ranked 171 out of 193 countries by the Human Development Index in 2023. , following two decades of civil wars and internal conflicts, around one million Congolese refugees were still living in neighbouring countries. Two million children are at risk of starvation, and the fighting has displaced 7 million people. The DRC is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, African Union, COMESA, Southern African Development Community, , and Economic Community of Central African States.
Etymology
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is named after the Congo River, which flows through the country. The Congo River is the world's deepest river and the world's third-largest river by discharge. The Comité d'études du haut Congo ("Committee for the Study of the Upper Congo"), established by King Leopold II of Belgium in 1876, and the International Association of the Congo, established by him in 1879, were also named after the river.
The Congo River was named by early European sailors after the Kingdom of Kongo and its Bantu inhabitants, the Kongo people, when they encountered them in the 16th century. The word Kongo comes from the Kongo language, also called Kikongo. According to American writer Samuel Henry Nelson: "It is probable that the word 'Kongo' itself implies a public gathering and that it is based on the root konga, 'to gather' (trans[itive])."Nelson, Samuel Henry. Colonialism in the Congo Basin, 1880–1940. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1994 The modern name of the Kongo people, Bakongo, was introduced in the early 20th century.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been known in the past as, in chronological order, the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, the Republic of the Congo-Léopoldville, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Zaire, before returning to its current name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
At the time of independence, the country was named the Republic of the Congo-Léopoldville to distinguish it from its neighbour the Republic of the Congo. With the promulgation of the Luluabourg Constitution in August 1964, the country became the DRC. It was renamed Zaire, a past name for the Congo River, in October 1971 by President Mobutu Sese Seko as part of his Authenticité initiative.
The word Zaire is from a Portuguese adaptation of a Kikongo word nzadi ("river"), a truncation of nzadi o nzere ("river swallowing rivers").Forbath, Peter. The River Congo (1977), p. 19.Ghislain C. Kabwit, Zaïre: the Roots of the Continuing Crisis, Cambridge University Press, 1979Jean-Jacques Arthur Malu-Malu, Le Congo Kinshasa, KARTHALA Editions, 2014, The river was known as Zaire during the 16th and 17th centuries. Congo seems to have replaced Zaire gradually in English usage during the 18th century. Congo is the preferred English name in 19th-century literature, although references to Zaire as the name used by the natives (i.e., derived from Portuguese usage) remained common.James Barbot, An Abstract of a Voyage to Congo River, Or the Zair and to Cabinde in the Year 1700 (1746). James Hingston Tuckey, Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire, Usually Called the Congo, in South Africa, in 1816 (1818). "Congo River, called Zahir or Zaire by the natives" John Purdy, Memoir, Descriptive and Explanatory, to Accompany the New Chart of the Ethiopic or Southern Atlantic Ocean, 1822, .
In 1992, the Sovereign National Conference voted to change the name of the country to the "Democratic Republic of the Congo", but the change was not made. The country's name was later restored by President Laurent-Désiré Kabila when he overthrew Mobutu in 1997. To distinguish it from the neighboring Republic of the Congo, it is sometimes referred to as Congo (Kinshasa) or Congo-Kinshasa. Its name is sometimes also abbreviated as Congo DR, DR Congo, DRC, the DROC, and RDC (in French).
History
Early history
The area of the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo was inhabited as early as 90,000 years ago, and later underwent major demographic and technological change with the expansion of Bantu peoples during the first millennium BC. From this process emerged organised states and empires, including early federated states around Pool Malebo and later the Kingdom of Kongo, as well many others such as the Luba and Lunda Empires.
Congo Free State (1877–1908)
From the 1870s to 1908, King Leopold II of Belgium established and ruled the Congo Free State as his personal possession, using forced labour and concessionary companies to extract rubber, while violence, disease, and exploitation caused catastrophic population loss. International exposure of the abuses, notably through the 1904 Casement Report and growing diplomatic pressure, led to Leopold's loss of control and the annexation of the territory as the Belgian Congo in 1908.
Belgian Congo (1908–1960)
The Belgian Congo was governed directly from Brussels, and although this change in administration ended the most extreme abuses of the Congo Free State, Belgian rule largely continued earlier patterns of direct control, racial segregation, forced labour, and repression, while prioritising economic exploitation through close cooperation between the state, missionaries, and private companies. After World War II, urbanisation, development programmes, and limited social improvements fostered a small African middle class, but political exclusion persisted, contributing to the rise of nationalist movements and escalating demands for independence in the late 1950s.
Independence and political crisis (1960–1965)
In May 1960, a growing nationalist movement, the Congolese National Movement led by Patrice Lumumba, won the parliamentary elections. Lumumba became the first prime minister of the Republic of the Congo, on 24 June 1960. The parliament elected Joseph Kasa-Vubu of the ABAKO party as president. Other parties that emerged included the African Solidarity Party led by Antoine Gizenga, and the National Party of the People led by Albert Delvaux and Laurent Mbariko.Congo 1960, dossiers du CRISP, Belgium
The Belgian Congo achieved independence on 30 June 1960 under the name "Republic of the Congo". Shortly after independence the Force Publique mutinied, and on 11 July the province of Katanga, led by Moïse Tshombe, and South Kasai engaged in secessionist uprisings against the new leadership."Jungle Shipwreck ", Time, 25 July 1960. Most of the 100,000 Europeans who had remained behind after independence fled the country. After the United Nations rejected Lumumba's call for help to put down the secessionist movements, Lumumba asked for assistance from the Soviet Union, who accepted and sent military supplies and advisers. On 23 August, the Congolese armed forces invaded South Kasai.
Lumumba was dismissed from office on 5 September 1960 by Kasa-Vubu, who publicly blamed him for massacres by the armed forces in South Kasai and for involving Soviets in the country. On 7 September, Lumumba made a speech to the Congolese House of Representatives, arguing his dismissal was illegal under the nation's laws. Congolese law gave parliament, not the president, the authority to dismiss a government minister. The House and Senate both rejected the dismissal of Lumumba, but the removal proceeded unconstitutionally.
On 14 September, Colonel Joseph Mobutu, with the backing of the US and Belgium, removed Lumumba from office. On 17 January 1961, Lumumba was handed over to Katangan authorities and executed by Belgian-led Katangan troops. A 2001 investigation by Belgium's Parliament found Belgium "morally responsible" for the murder of Lumumba, and the country has since officially apologised for its role in his death.