Democratic Republic of the Congo
country in Central Africa
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.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Democratic Republic of the Congo” is country in Central Africa. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Democratic, Republic and Congo, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q974. VIAF identifies the subject as 134864542. The Library of Congress control number is n80061022. Authority coordinates are -2.880, 23.656. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Democratic Republic of the Congo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.