Republic of the CongoRépublique du Congo

Three states dominated the region before colonial rule. The Kingdom of Loango on the coast traded with Europeans from the 16th century and shipped large numbers of enslaved people from Loango Bay. Inland, the Kingdom of Kongo's northern provinces reached the area around today's southern Congo, and on the plateaux north of the Pool Malebo the Tio (Teke) kingdom controlled the river trade.

In 1880 the Italian-born French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza signed a treaty with the Teke ruler Makoko, giving France a foothold on the north bank of the Pool; the post that grew there took his name. France then handed much of the territory to concession companies, which forced people to gather rubber and ivory. The Congo-Océan railway from Brazzaville to Pointe-Noire, built between 1921 and 1934 largely with forced labour, cost thousands of lives.

Brazzaville was the capital of French Equatorial Africa and, from 1940, of Free France in Africa; in 1944 de Gaulle held the Brazzaville Conference there, promising colonial reforms. Brazza's remains were moved from Algiers to a new marble memorial in Brazzaville in 2006, a choice that still divides opinion.

Independence came on 15 August 1960 under Abbé Fulbert Youlou, a Catholic priest, who was overthrown in the 'Trois Glorieuses' uprising of 1963. In 1969 Marien Ngouabi declared the People's Republic of the Congo, Africa's first Marxist-Leninist state, with the Congolese Party of Labour (PCT) as sole party. Ngouabi was assassinated in 1977; Denis Sassou Nguesso took over in 1979.

Multiparty democracy arrived in 1991–92 and Pascal Lissouba won the presidency. Rivalries between militias loyal to Lissouba, Sassou Nguesso and Bernard Kolélas exploded into civil war in 1993–94 and again in 1997, when Sassou Nguesso's Cobra militia, backed by Angolan troops, took Brazzaville. Fighting continued in the Pool region with the Ninja rebels of Pastor Ntumi into the 2000s and flared again in 2016–17 before a peace agreement.

Sassou Nguesso changed the constitution in 2015 to lift age and term limits and was re-elected in 2016, 2021 and March 2026, the last time with about 95% in a vote the main opposition boycotted and during an internet shutdown. Two of his best-known challengers from 2016 remain in prison.

The north of the country is almost roadless rainforest and swamp along the Sangha and Ubangi rivers. Odzala-Kokoua, first protected in 1935 and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2023, has one of the highest densities of western lowland gorillas anywhere, along with forest elephants and chimpanzees. The park is co-managed by the government and African Parks; visitor camps run by a private operator take small groups to habituated gorilla families.

Nouabalé-Ndoki, part of the Sangha Trinational UNESCO site with Cameroon and the CAR, protects forest so remote that researchers in the 1990s found chimpanzees with no fear of humans. At Mbeli Bai, a research platform has watched gorillas and elephants for decades. On the coast, Conkouati-Douli protects lagoons and nesting beaches, and the Jane Goodall Institute's Tchimpounga sanctuary cares for orphaned chimpanzees.

Ebola outbreaks killed many gorillas and chimpanzees in the region in the early 2000s, one reason for the strict mask and distance rules on gorilla visits today.

Kongo peoples — Lari, Vili, Bembe and others — make up about half the population and dominate the south; the Téké live on the central plateaux; the Mbochi and related groups, the president's community, in the north. Forest peoples such as the Aka live in Likouala and Sangha and face discrimination; a 2011 law, the first of its kind in Africa, recognised their rights.

Most people are Christian: Catholics, Protestants, and fast-growing revival churches, alongside Kimbanguists and the Matsouanist movement that grew from anti-colonial resistance in the Pool. Belief in ancestors and in the power of healers remains widespread.

Brazzaville and Kinshasa grew Congolese rumba together from the 1940s, trading musicians and bands across the river; Brazzaville's Les Bantous de la Capitale were among the great orchestras of the 1960s. UNESCO listed Congolese rumba as a joint heritage of both Congos in 2021.

The Poto-Poto painting school, founded in 1951 by French artist Pierre Lods, developed a stylised, colourful look — slender figures, market scenes, masks — that still sells to visitors today. Writers from Brazzaville, including Sony Labou Tansi, Emmanuel Dongala and Alain Mabanckou, are among Africa's best-known French-language authors.

La Sape (Société des ambianceurs et des personnes élégantes) is a movement of men, and increasingly women, who spend heavily on designer clothes and parade them with choreographed style, especially in Bacongo. Its roots go back to colonial houseboys dressing like their employers; its members see it as art, peace-making and dignity.

Meals are built on cassava — foufou, chikwangue — with saka-saka leaves, fish from the river steamed in leaves (maboké), chicken in moambé palm-nut sauce and grilled capitaine. Weekends mean riverside restaurants and bars with music and 65 cl beers.

Brazzaville is calmer and greener than Kinshasa across the water; Pointe-Noire, the oil capital, is more cosmopolitan and more expensive. Unpaid salaries and fuel shortages are recurring stresses, and mobile money has become the way most people pay.