Burundi
sovereign state in Africa
Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is located in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and southeastern Africa, with a population of over 14 million people. It is bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and southeast, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west; Lake Tanganyika lies along its southwestern border. The political capital city is Gitega and the economic capital and largest city is Bujumbura.
The Twa, Hutu, and Tutsi peoples have lived in Burundi for at least 500 years. For more than 200 of those years, Burundi was an independent kingdom. In 1885, it became part of German East Africa. After the First World War and Germany's defeat, the League of Nations mandated the territories of Burundi and Rwanda to Belgium in a combined territory called Ruanda-Urundi. After the Second World War, this transformed into a United Nations trust territory.
Burundi gained independence in 1962 and initially retained the monarchy.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Burundi” is sovereign state in Africa. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Burundi, sovereign and state, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “sovereign state in Africa” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
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 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q967. VIAF identifies the subject as 157863385. The Library of Congress control number is n81025977. Authority coordinates are -3.667, 29.817. 5 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1885 and 1962.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. 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
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Burundi”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Burundi primary sources, Burundi archive and Burundi research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Burundi”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Burundi” 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.