Angola
Capital: Luanda · Middle Africa
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the western coast of Southern Africa.
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The natural habitat of the Mupa National Park region.
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Did you know?
Angola has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic Age. After the Bantu expansion reached the region, states were formed by the 13th century and organised into confederations. The Kingdom of Kongo ascended to achieve hegemony among the other kingdoms from the 14th century. Portuguese explorers established relations with Kongo in 1483. To the south were the kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba, with the Ovimbundu kingdoms further south, and the Mbunda Kingdom in the east.
The Portuguese began colonising the coast in the 16th century.
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CONCURSO DE POESIA...
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Etymology
The name Angola is based on the Portuguese colonial name Reino de Angola ('Kingdom of Angola'), which appeared as early as Paulo Dias de Novais's 1571 charter. The toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title ngola, held by the kings of Ndongo and Matamba. Ndongo in the highlands, between the Kwanza and Lucala rivers, was nominally a possession of the Kingdom of Kongo.
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Instituto Médio Industrial de Luanda/IMIL
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image du film Moça
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Marginal Avenida 4 de Fevreiro. Photo by Fabio Vanin, Luanda, 2013.
Photo: Fabio Vanin, CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
History
Modern Angola was populated predominantly by nomadic Khoi and San peoples prior to the first Bantu migrations. The Khoi and San peoples were hunter-gatherers, rather than practising pastoralism or cultivation of crops.
In the first millennium BC, they were displaced by Bantu peoples arriving from the north, most of whom likely originated in what is today northwestern Nigeria and southern Niger. Bantu speakers introduced the cultivation of bananas and taro, as well as maintenance of large cattle herds, to Angola's central highlands and the Luanda plain.
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Image of freshly harvested legumes in Bié province
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Photograph of Monte Belo recreation center
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At Marcela Costa's gallery in Luanda. From left: Carla Norrthon (Sweden), Marcela Costa, ?
Photo: Peter Norrthon, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Geography
At 1,246,700 km2 (481,400 sq mi), Angola is the world's twenty-second largest country – comparable in size to Mali, or twice the size of France or of Texas.
It lies mostly between latitudes 4° and 18°S, and longitudes 12° and 24°E. Angola borders Namibia to the south, Zambia to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north-east and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west. The coastal exclave of Cabinda in the north has borders with the Republic of the Congo to the north and with the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south.
The nation's capital, Luanda, lies on the Atlantic coast in the northwest of the country.
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Souvenir vun der UNITA un hir Gäscht, an den Ateliere vum Haaptquartéier selwer gemaach.
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Government and politics
The Angolan government is composed of three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. Executive authority is exercised by the President with the assistance of the Vice-President and the Council of Ministers.
The legislative branch comprises a 220-seat unicameral legislature, the National Assembly of Angola, elected from multi-member province-wide and nationwide constituencies using party-list proportional representation. For decades, political power has been concentrated in the presidency. After 38 years of rule, in 2017 President dos Santos stepped down from MPLA leadership.
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Colorful buildings in Luanda
Photo: Edward Middleton, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
The natural habitat of the Mupa National Park region.
Photo: TheWikiWest, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Economy
Angola has diamonds, oil, gold, copper, a rich wildlife (which was dramatically depleted during the civil war), forests, and fossil fuels. Since independence, oil and diamonds have been the most important economic resources. Smallholder and plantation agriculture dramatically dropped during the Angolan Civil War, but began to recover after 2002.
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Demographics
Angola has a population of 36,604,681 inhabitants according to the results of its 2024 census. It is composed of Ovimbundu 29%, Ambundu 27%, Bakongo 14%, and 30% other ethnic groups (including the Chokwe, the Nyaneka-Lumkumbi, the Ovambo, the Ganguela and the Xindonga). The Ambundu and Ovimbundu ethnic groups combined form a majority of the population, at 56%.
It is estimated that Angola was host to 12,100 refugees and 2,900 asylum seekers by the end of 2007. 11,400 of those refugees were originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who arrived in the 1970s.
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Culture
Angolan culture has been heavily influenced by Portuguese culture, especially in language and religion, and the culture of the indigenous ethnic groups of Angola, predominantly Bantu culture.
The diverse ethnic communities—the Ovimbundu, Ambundu, Bakongo, Chokwe, Mbunda and other peoples—to varying degrees maintain their own cultural traits, traditions and languages, but in the cities, where slightly more than half of the population now lives, a mixed culture has been emerging since colonial times; in Luanda, since its foundation in the 16th century.
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