Embedded Files
1.1- Rwenzori Mountains, Eastern DRC
Geography
The DRC is in central Africa and is the third-largest country in Africa.[1] In total land area, it is roughly one-quarter of the size of the United States and 80 times that of Belgium. The DRC shares borders with nine countries: Angola (including the discontinuous Cabinda Province), Burundi, Central African Republic, The Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. The Congo River is vital to the transportation infrastructure. This winding river provides significant transportation routes to vital ports across the country despite containing unnavigable cataracts (Figure 1.2). The river's flow volume is second on Earth behind the Amazon, and its hydroelectric potential is higher than the rest of the African continent combined.[2] The equator passes through the DRC with one-third of the country north and two-thirds south of the line. The climate is tropical, and approximately fifty percent of the country is covered by woodlands.[3] The tropical rainforests in the DRC are some of the world's largest remaining (Figure 1.1), with estimates of undiscovered animal and plant species being as high as six figures.[4] The country has mountain ranges scattered throughout, and although most of the topsoil is only moderately fertile and only three percent of the arable land is devoted to agriculture, farming can be practiced year-round due to the climate.[5] To the East, the DRC borders the Great Lakes region and the Great Rift Valley, which contains the active Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira volcanoes. The DRC includes five World Heritage sites.
1.4- Forests in the Congo Basin
1.2- Tropical rainforest cover in the DRC
1.3- Congo River and its tributaries
1.5- Inga Falls in Matadi, DRC
1.6- Congo River
Demographics
The population of the DRC is just over one hundred and fifteen million, with males slightly outnumbering females.[6] The high fertility rate (4.2 births per woman) and lack of access to family planning in the DRC has led to a youthful age structure, as ninety-seven percent of the population is under the age of 65. A youthful population can have detrimental effects on society, including high dependency ratios, lack of a tax base to fund essential services, political unrest, and strains on healthcare and education, all of which the DRC has and is experiencing. The median age in the DRC is seventeen, and life expectancy is sixty-three years.[7] The infant mortality rate is over ten times the United States rate at fifty-seven deaths per thousand live births.[8] Sixty-three percent of the population lives below the poverty line.[9] Twenty-four-and-a-half million people live in acute food insecurity due to ongoing conflicts in the East and high food prices. [10]Ninety percent of men are literate compared to seventy percent of women; children attend eleven years of school on average.[11]
Ethnicity and Language
The DRC comprises over three hundred ethnic groups who speak over two hundred dialects.[12] Many of these groups share a great deal in common socially and culturally. Most of these ethnic groups share a Bantu heritage. Other major clusters include the Kongo of the southern savannah, the Lunda, the Luba, the Mongo, and the Ngombe.[13] Like ethnicity, most of the languages spoken in the DRC have Bantu roots. The arrival of Belgian traders and colonists brought the French language into the area and used it as a tool of colonization.[14] The four national languages are Lingala, Kikongo, Tshiluba, and Kiswahili (Figure 1.9). Lingala is the language of trade along the Congo River. Kikongo is spoken in the Kongo province, a small yet densely populated area. Tshiluba is spoken primarily by Luba ethnic groups, and Kiswahili is the lingua franca of the eastern provinces.[15] Many in the DRC see French as a language of social mobility, and parents are increasingly encouraging their children to use it as a tool for success.[16] Many dialects, especially those used in urban settings, are being eroded and seen as increasingly unimportant by some Congolese.[17]
1.7- Kinshasa, DRC's capital city
1.8- Population distributions
1.9- Regional languages of the DRC
1.10- Classroom in the DRC
1.11- DRC Coat of Arms
Links:
Royal Museum of Central Africa
List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites
Suggested Reading:
Carson, Ben. "A Metamorphosed Language: Tracing Language Attitudes towards Lubumbashi Swahili and French in the DRC." SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics 21 (2023): 30-45.
De Herdt, Tom, Kristof Titeca, and Inge Wagemakers. "Make Schools, Not War? Donors' Rewriting of the Social Contract in the DRC." Development Policy Review 30, no. 6 (2012): 681-701.
Kisangani, Emizet F., and F. Scott Bobb. Historical Dictionary of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 3rd ed. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2010.
Leinweber, Ashley E. "Muslim Public Schools in Post-Conflict D.R. Congo: New Hybrid Institutions in a Weak State." Africa Power and Politics, no. 22 (2012): 1-26.
Education and Religion
Education and religion are closely related in the DRC. Missionaries began the Christianization of the DRC shortly after European contact in the late 15th Century. Most Congolese are profoundly religious, and approximately seventy-five percent of the nation is Christian.[18] Another ten to fifteen percent of the population identify as Muslim, and most remaining Congolese practice traditional spiritual religions.[19] Most Congolese who identify as Christian also weave conventional African religious practices into their Christianity by honoring and consulting ancestors, wearing protective talismans, and consulting practitioners.[20] Kimbanguism is a large sect of Christianity in the DRC founded by Joseph Kimbangu during the Belgian Congo era. This syncretic version of Christianity is based on the Bible and spiritual salvation while mixing in some traditional African beliefs. However, Kimbanguism calls for the destruction of fetishes and an end to sorcery and polygamy.[21]
Educational funding was drained by the Mobutu regime and hit rock bottom in the early 1980s.[22] Since then, education has gradually shifted to a hybrid of public and private financing. This system, combined with the general conditions of poverty across the DRC, has put the country in the bottom five in the world in terms of the number of children enrolled in school.[23] Parents are expected to finance eighty to ninety percent of school expenditures in some areas.[24] Religious organizations mostly make up the deficit the government and parents cannot. As a result, most schools are run by church networks rooted in colonial times. The system is a legacy of the Belgian “free schools” founded by Catholic missionaries and intended to instill Christian morals in Congolese children.[25] Recently, the growing Muslim minority in the DRC is finding a foothold in opening and helping run secular schools.[26]
Government Structure
The DRC's government structure has undergone myriad transitions since its first contact with Europeans in the late fifteenth century. Currently, it is a semi-presidential republic with twenty-six provinces. It is governed by a civil law system that is a product of syncretism based on Belgian, customary, and tribal law.[27] The executive branch is headed by the president, who appoints the prime minister and a cabinet of state administrators to head the government.[28] The legislative branch consists of a bicameral Parliament with one hundred and nine senate seats and five hundred National Assembly seats.[29] The two highest courts of the judicial branch are the Court of Cassation and the Constitutional Court, which have several subordinate courts based on location.
Page updated
Report abuse