Kinshasa
Capital (since 1960) of the Democratic Republic of Congo on the Congo River, 400 km/250 mi inland from the port of Matadi; population (2004 est) 7,273,900. Industries include ship-building and repairing, chemicals, textiles, engineering, food processing, and furniture. It was founded by the explorer Henry Morton Stanley in 1881. The National University of Kinshasa is here.
History
Stanley named the city Léopoldville after the Belgian king Leopold II. The city became the capital of the Belgian Congo in 1923 and grew steadily as the focus of the country's trade and administration. At independence in 1960 it had a population of 400,000, but massive immigration encouraged by disturbed political conditions in many rural areas led to a quadrupling within 12 years as suburbs spread away from the river. It was renamed Kinshasa in 1966 after a nearby 19th-century village. During the 1960s employment did not keep pace with population growth, but the early 1970s brought a commercial and industrial boom, helped by power supplies from the vast new Inga hydroelectric scheme. The city experienced economic difficulties in the 1990s because of civil war.
Location The largest city in tropical Africa, Kinshasa extends for 20 km/12 mi along the south bank of the Congo River at the point where it widens to form Malebo Pool, 500 km/310 mi from the Atlantic. Downstream numerous rapids prevent navigation, and the city became an important port of transshipment, linked to the port of Matadi by rail, but also commanding a vast, inland waterway system upstream. |
