Fang people
ethnic group in Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea
The Fang people, also known as Fãn or Pahouin, are an ethnic group found in Equatorial Guinea, northern Gabon, and southern Cameroon. Some Fang also live in the Republic of the Congo. Representing about 85% of the total population of Equatorial Guinea, concentrated in the Río Muni region, the Fang people are its largest ethnic group. The Fang are also the largest ethnic group in Gabon, making up about a quarter of the population.
Language
The Fang people speak the Fang language, also known as Pahouin or Pamue or Pangwe. The language is a Northwest Bantu language belonging to the Niger-Congo family of languages. The Fang language is similar and intelligible with languages spoken by Beti-Pahuin peoples, namely the Beti people to their north and the Bulu people in central. Their largest presence is in the southern regions, up to the Ogooué River estuary where anthropologists refer them also as "Fang proper".
They have preserved their history largely through a musical oral tradition. Many Fang people are fluent in Spanish, French, German and English, a tradition of second language they developed during the Spanish colonial rule in Equatorial Guinea, the French colonial rule in Gabon and the German-later-French colonial rule in Cameroon.
The public source identifies “Fang people” as ethnic group in Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Fang, people and ethnic.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1295544. The Library of Congress control number is sh85047097. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fang people” 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.