At the time of independence, the area now encompassing Kongo Central was part of the greater province of Léopoldville, along with the capital city of Kinshasa and the districts of Kwango, Kwilu and Mai-Ndombe. Under Belgian colonial rule, the province was known as Bas-Congo (as in "Lower Congo River") and was renamed Kongo Central after independence.
Under the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko from 1965 to 1997, the Congo river was renamed as Zaire. The province was named as Bas-Zaïre. The name was later reverted to Bas-Congo. It was subsequently renamed as Kongo Central in 2015.
Geography
Landscape of Kongo CentralBaKongo masks from the Kongo Central region
Kongo Central is the only province in the country with an ocean coastline; it has narrow frontage on the Atlantic Ocean. It borders the provinces of Kinshasa to the north-east, Kwango to the east, and the Republic of Angola to the south as well as the Republic of the Congo and Cabinda to the north.
Divisions
The provincial capital is Matadi, with
Boma being the other official city..
The remainder of the province is administratively divided into ten territories, the most of any province:
Before 2015 these territories were divisions of the Bas-Fleuve, Cataractes and Lukaya districts; except for Moanda, which was attached to Boma (a city/district hybrid).
^M. J. Hambrey and W. B. Harland, Earth's Pre-Pleistocene Glacial Record, Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 157
^Godefroid Muzalia Kihangu, Bundu dia Kongo, une résurgence des messianismes et de l’alliance des Bakongo?, Universiteit Gent, België, 2011, p. 1
^
Central Intelligence Agency (2016). "Democratic Republic of the Congo". The World Factbook. Langley, Virginia: Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
^Institut National de la Statistique–RD Congo (March 2017). Annuaire statistique 2015 [2015 Statistical Yearbook] (PDF) (in French). pp. 8-9 Tableau 1.3. Archived(PDF) from the original on 13 October 2022. Retrieved 2 Jan 2023.
^Institut National de la Statistique–RD Congo (July 2015). Annuaire statistique 2014 [2014 Statistical Yearbook] (PDF) (in French). pp. 36–38 Tableau 1.5. Archived from the original(PDF) on 12 Mar 2019. Retrieved 3 January 2023.