Ogooué-Ivindo Province
province of Gabon
Ogooué-Ivindo Province is the northeasternmost of Gabon's nine provinces, though its Lopé Department is in the very center of the country. It gets its name from two rivers, the Ogooué and the Ivindo. This province, containing thousands of square kilometres of rainforest, is the largest and most sparsely populated and much less developed than the rest of the country. As of 2013 it had a population of 63,293 people. The principal town is Makokou.
History
In 1873–4, Antoine-Alfred Marche and Victor de Compiègne (the Marquis de Compiegné) explored the Ogooué River region. They arrived in Lopé in 1874 but encountered hostility from the Fang-Meke people at the mouth of the Ivindo. Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza similarly made excursion to the region in November 1875 and between 1879 and 1882.
In January 1995, a bout of the Ebola virus broke out in the forests of Ogooué-Ivindo. Nine out of 19 people died in the cases registered out of a population of 350 people.
“Ogooué-Ivindo Province” enters the record as province of Gabon. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ogooué-Ivindo, Province and province can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Ogooué-Ivindo Province” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ogooué-Ivindo, Province and province provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 17, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q823822. Authority coordinates are 0.600, 12.700. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2013, 1873, 1874 and 1875.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Ogooué-Ivindo Province” 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.