Nature · c. 8600 BC
Congo's peat began forming 10,600 years ago.
Did you know that the vast peat swamps of the Cuvette Centrale, shared by the two Congos, began accumulating around 10,600 years ago, slowly locking away carbon beneath the waterlogged forests ever since the end of the last Ice Age.
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Heritage · before c. 1000 BC
The forest peoples were here first.
Did you know that the forest hunter-gatherer peoples, such as the Aka and other groups once lumped together as 'Pygmies', are regarded as the earliest inhabitants of the Congo region, long before Bantu-speaking farmers arrived?
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Heritage · 1st millennium BC
Bantu migrants brought iron and farming.
Did you know that Bantu-speaking farmers spreading through Central Africa brought farming and, later, ironworking into the forests of today's Republic of the Congo, displacing or absorbing many of the earlier forest peoples over centuries?
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Heritage · c. 1390
A kingdom named a river and two countries.
Did you know that the Kingdom of Kongo, traditionally founded around 1390 by Lukeni lua Nimi, held sway over lands that today straddle Angola, the DRC and the southern Republic of the Congo, and gave the whole river its name?
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Heritage · c. 14th–15th century
Three coastal kingdoms shared one ancestor state.
Did you know that the coastal kingdoms of Loango, Kakongo and Ngoyo all traced their origins to the small inland state of Vungu, making them a family of related kingdoms along the Atlantic shore north of the Congo River?
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Heritage · 15th century
The Makoko title is centuries old.
Did you know that the Teke (Tio) kingdom around Malebo Pool was ruled by a king bearing the title Makoko, the same title held by the ruler who would sign away land to Brazza centuries later?
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Geography · late 15th century
Portuguese sailors named Pointe-Noire.
Did you know that Pointe-Noire owes its name to Portuguese sailors, who called the headland Ponta Negra, the 'black point', after the dark rocks they saw on the coast during their voyages along Central Africa?
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Economy · c. 1600
Raffia cloth was once money.
Did you know that in the Kingdom of Loango, finely woven raffia-palm cloths circulated as a form of money, and Dutch and Portuguese traders bought them to use as currency further south in Angola?
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Society · 17th–19th century
Loango Bay shipped captives across the Atlantic.
Did you know that the Loango Coast was one of the major slave-trading shores of Central Africa, with Vili brokers supplying European ships at Loango Bay, Malemba and Cabinda until the 19th century?
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Culture · 19th century
Each nail in an nkisi sealed an oath.
Did you know that the nail-studded nkisi nkondi power figures of the Kongo and Vili peoples were 'activated' by driving in a nail or blade each time an oath was sworn or a dispute settled?
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Heritage · 1880
Brazzaville's founder was born in Rome.
Did you know that Brazzaville is named after Pietro Savorgnan di Brazzà, a nobleman born in Rome to a Friulian family, who became a French citizen and explored the Ogooué and Congo for France?
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Heritage · 10 September 1880
One treaty gave France the north bank.
Did you know that on 10 September 1880 the Teke king Makoko Iloo I signed a treaty placing his lands under French protection, a deal Brazza used to claim the north bank of Malebo Pool for France?
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Heritage · 1880–1882
A Senegalese sergeant held Brazzaville for France.
Did you know that Brazza left a Senegalese sergeant, Malamine Camara, with just two men to hold the new French post on Malebo Pool, and he famously stood his ground when Henry Morton Stanley arrived?
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Economy · 1899
France rented the Congo to private firms.
Did you know that in 1899 France carved its Congo colony into about 40 concessions handed to private companies, whose forced rubber collection caused so much abuse that a scandal soon erupted in Paris?
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Heritage · 1905
Brazza's abuse report was buried.
Did you know that Brazza was sent back to the Congo in 1905 to investigate colonial abuses, died at Dakar on the way home, and his damning report was then kept from publication by the French government?
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Geography · 1910
Brazzaville ruled a federation of four colonies.
Did you know that in 1910 Brazzaville became the capital of French Equatorial Africa, a federation stretching from the Atlantic to Lake Chad that included today's Gabon, Central African Republic and Chad?
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Society · 1921–1934
The railway cost over 17,000 lives.
Did you know that more than 17,000 workers are estimated to have died building the 502 km Congo–Ocean Railway between 1921 and 1934, many of them conscripted from far-off colonies and killed by disease and accidents?
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Society · 1926
Matsoua's followers kept faith after his death.
Did you know that André Matsoua founded a mutual-aid association in Paris in 1926 that grew into a mass movement, and after his death in prison in 1942 many followers refused to believe he had died?
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Culture · 1927
A novelist's travelogue shamed Paris.
Did you know that André Gide's 1927 travel book Voyage au Congo exposed brutal treatment of Africans by concession companies and helped push France's National Assembly to debate colonial abuses?
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Records · completed 1934
A 1.7 km tunnel through the Mayombe.
Did you know that the Congo–Ocean Railway bores through the Mayombe hills in the 1,690-metre Bamba tunnel, one of the hardest sections of a line whose construction became a byword for colonial forced labour?
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Nature · 1935
Odzala has been protected since 1935.
Did you know that Odzala, now part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, was first protected in 1935, making it one of the oldest national parks in Africa?
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Heritage · 1940
Brazzaville was Free France's capital.
Did you know that from 1940 Brazzaville served as the capital of Free France, giving Charles de Gaulle's movement a territorial base in Africa while metropolitan France was occupied by Germany?
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Firsts · 1940
Brazzaville's governor rests in the Panthéon.
Did you know that Félix Éboué, born in French Guiana and governor-general at Brazzaville from 1940, later became the first Black person buried in the Panthéon in Paris?
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Culture · 1940s
A basilica with an emerald roof.
Did you know that Brazzaville's Basilica of Sainte-Anne, designed by Roger Erell and built during the Second World War, is famous for its steep roof covered in shimmering green glazed tiles?
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Heritage · January–February 1944
Reforms yes, independence no, in 1944.
Did you know that at the Brazzaville Conference of early 1944, de Gaulle's Free French promised colonial reforms such as ending forced labour, but explicitly ruled out independence for the colonies?
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Culture · 1951
A Brazzaville art school went global.
Did you know that the Poto-Poto school of painting, founded in Brazzaville's Poto-Poto district in 1951 by Frenchman Pierre Lods, became one of Africa's best-known modern art movements with its stylised elongated figures?
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Society · 1956
The priest-president wore Dior cassocks.
Did you know that Fulbert Youlou, Congo's first president, was a Catholic priest suspended by his bishop for entering politics, yet kept wearing cassocks, reportedly tailored by Christian Dior?
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Heritage · 1959
Congo's flag disappeared for 21 years.
Did you know that the green, yellow and red diagonal flag of the Republic of the Congo was first adopted in 1959, dropped during the Marxist era, and restored in 1991?
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Geography · 1960
Two Congos, one name, in 1960.
Did you know that in 1960 both Congos became independent as the 'Republic of the Congo', so people told them apart by their capitals, which is why 'Congo-Brazzaville' is still used today?
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Heritage · 13–15 August 1963
Three glorious days toppled the president.
Did you know that President Youlou was toppled in August 1963 by three days of strikes and street protests in Brazzaville, remembered as the 'Trois Glorieuses' after a famous French revolution?
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Sport · July 1965
The first All-Africa Games were here.
Did you know that Brazzaville hosted the very first All-Africa Games in July 1965, where some 2,500 athletes from 29 nations marched into the stadium?
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Firsts · 1968
Africa's first people's republic.
Did you know that in 1968 young paratrooper captain Marien Ngouabi seized power and within a year turned Congo into Africa's first self-declared Marxist–Leninist 'people's republic'?
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Heritage · 1970
A hammer and hoe flew over Congo.
Did you know that the flag of the People's Republic of the Congo, adopted in 1970, was red with a yellow crossed hammer and hoe inside a wreath of palm branches beneath a star?
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Sport · 1972
Congo's only Africa Cup of Nations crown.
Did you know that Congo-Brazzaville won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1972 in Cameroon, beating Mali 3–2 in the final in Yaoundé to claim its only continental title?
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Heritage · March 1977
A president and a cardinal killed in days.
Did you know that within days of President Ngouabi's assassination in March 1977, Cardinal Émile Biayenda, archbishop of Brazzaville, was also abducted and killed?
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Heritage · 13 December 1988
A deal in Brazzaville helped free Namibia.
Did you know that the Brazzaville Protocol, signed in December 1988 by Angola, Cuba and South Africa, paved the way for Cuban troops to leave Angola and for Namibia to become independent?
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Records · 19 September 1989
A desert memorial seen from space.
Did you know that UTA Flight 772, which took off from Brazzaville in 1989, was blown up over Niger, killing 170, and its huge desert memorial outlined a DC-10 visible from the sky until vandalised in 2023?
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Heritage · February–June 1991
A conference ended one-party rule.
Did you know that Congo's 1991 National Conference, lasting over three months, stripped the ruling party of power, restored the old flag and anthem, and became a model for democratic transitions across Francophone Africa?
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Nature · 1992
Orphaned chimps' refuge near Pointe-Noire.
Did you know that the Tchimpounga sanctuary near Pointe-Noire, opened by the Jane Goodall Institute in 1992, became one of Africa's largest refuges for orphaned chimpanzees?
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Nature · 1993
Chimps that had never met humans.
Did you know that Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, created in 1993, protects forest so remote that researchers met chimpanzees there that showed no fear of humans, apparently never having seen people?
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Society · 1993–1999
Cobras, Ninjas and Cocoyes fought for Brazzaville.
Did you know that the private militias in Congo's 1990s civil wars were named the Cobras, the Ninjas and the Cocoyes, loyal to Sassou Nguesso, Bernard Kolélas and Pascal Lissouba respectively?
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Nature · 18 July 1998
Lac Télé is a protected wetland.
Did you know that Lac Télé and its surrounding swamp forests were designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance on 18 July 1998, covering almost 4,390 square kilometres?
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Nature · 2002–2003
Ebola killed thousands of gorillas.
Did you know that Ebola outbreaks in the early 2000s swept through the Lossi gorilla sanctuary in north-western Congo, killing an estimated 5,000 gorillas, one of the worst disease die-offs ever recorded among great apes?
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Heritage · 2006
Brazza's bones came home to Brazzaville.
Did you know that in 2006 the remains of Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza were moved from Algiers to a marble mausoleum in Brazzaville, a gesture that divided Congolese opinion?
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Nature · 2008
125,000 hidden gorillas were found.
Did you know that in 2008 the Wildlife Conservation Society announced it had found about 125,000 previously uncounted western lowland gorillas in northern Congo, more than doubling the previous estimate of about 100,000 for the whole species?
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Society · 4 March 2012
The Mpila blasts killed at least 300.
Did you know that on 4 March 2012 a series of explosions at an army arms depot in Brazzaville's Mpila district killed at least 300 people and destroyed thousands of homes?
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Nature · 2012
A World Heritage site across three countries.
Did you know that the Sangha Trinational, including Congo's Nouabalé-Ndoki park and neighbouring parks in Cameroon and the Central African Republic, became a three-country UNESCO World Heritage site in 2012?
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Sport · September 2015
The Games returned after 50 years.
Did you know that Brazzaville hosted the 2015 African Games exactly 50 years after staging the first edition, building a new stadium complex at Kintélé north of the city?
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Society · October 2015
A referendum removed age and term limits.
Did you know that the 2015 constitutional referendum scrapped presidential age and term limits, allowing Denis Sassou Nguesso, then over 70, to run again for president?
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Records · 2017
World's largest tropical peatland mapped in 2017.
Did you know that scientists only mapped the Cuvette Centrale peatland in 2017, revealing about 145,500 square kilometres of peat, the world's largest tropical peatland complex, roughly the size of England?
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Economy · June 2018
Congo became an OPEC member in 2018.
Did you know that the Republic of the Congo joined OPEC in June 2018, and it has stayed a member even as Angola, Qatar and Ecuador later left the oil producers' group?
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Culture · 14 December 2021
Rumba became world heritage in 2021.
Did you know that in December 2021 UNESCO added Congolese rumba to its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, as a joint nomination by the Republic of the Congo and the DRC?
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Nature · 2023
Odzala joined the World Heritage list.
Did you know that the Forest Massif of Odzala-Kokoua was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023, recognised as a key refuge for forest elephants and great apes?
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Records · March 2026
Sassou Nguesso: some 42 years in power.
Did you know that after winning the March 2026 election with 94.9 percent of the vote, as confirmed by the Constitutional Court, Denis Sassou Nguesso was sworn in on 16 April for a fifth term, extending a rule totalling some 42 years since 1979?
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Geography ·
Two capitals within sight of each other.
Did you know that Brazzaville and Kinshasa face each other across the Congo River, often called the world's closest pair of capital cities apart from Rome and Vatican City, with only about four kilometres of unbridged water between them?
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Nature ·
Peat holds as much carbon as the forest.
Did you know that the Cuvette Centrale peatlands shared by the two Congos store around 30 billion tonnes of carbon, about as much as all the trees of the Congo Basin's forests?
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Records ·
The world's deepest river.
Did you know that the Congo River, which forms much of the country's eastern border, is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths of around 220 metres?
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Geography ·
Makoua sits on the Equator.
Did you know that the Equator crosses the Republic of the Congo, and the northern town of Makoua is known for sitting almost exactly on it?
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Myth or fact ·
A 'living dinosaur' no one has found.
Did you know that Mokele-mbembe, said to be a long-necked swamp creature in the Likouala region around Lac Télé, has drawn many expeditions, yet no scientific evidence that it exists has ever been found?
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Nature ·
Northern Congo is gorilla country.
Did you know that the Republic of the Congo is a stronghold of the critically endangered western lowland gorilla, with tens of thousands living in its northern swamp forests?
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Nature ·
Elephants gather at forest clearings called bais.
Did you know that in Odzala-Kokoua forest elephants, gorillas and buffalo gather at natural forest clearings called bais, where they come to feed on mineral-rich soils and plants?
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Language ·
Two national languages beside French.
Did you know that while French is the official language, Lingala and Kituba, also called Munukutuba, are the Republic of the Congo's two national languages?
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Culture ·
Brazzaville's dandies dress to impress.
Did you know that La Sape, the Society of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People, turns dandyism into a way of life, with Brazzaville's sapeurs showing off designer suits in districts like Bacongo?
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Culture ·
Cassava leaves and cassava bread rule.
Did you know that saka-saka, made from pounded cassava leaves, and chikwangue, fermented cassava bread wrapped in leaves, are everyday staples of Congolese cooking?
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Culture ·
Palm-nut chicken, a shared national dish.
Did you know that poulet moambé, chicken stewed in a sauce made from palm-nut pulp, is often regarded as a national dish in both Congos?
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