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The Belgian Congo (French: Congo belge, pronounced [kɔ̃ɡo bɛlʒ]; Dutch: Belgisch-Congo) [a] was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960 and became the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964.
Zaire, [c] officially the Republic of Zaire, [d] was the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1971 to 18 May 1997. Located in Central Africa , it was, by area, the third-largest country in Africa after Sudan and Algeria , and the 11th-largest country in the world from 1965 to 1997.
The river was known as Zaire during the 16th and 17th centuries; Congo seems to have replaced Zaire gradually in English usage during the 18th century, and Congo is the preferred English name in 19th-century literature, although references to Zahir or Zaire as the name used by the inhabitants remained common. [14]
Roughly 98% of Belgium's overseas territory was just one colony (about 76 times larger than Belgium itself) – known as the Belgian Congo. The colony was founded in 1908 following the transfer of sovereignty from the Congo Free State , which was the personal property of Belgium's king, Leopold II .
A sovereign state is a political association with effective sovereignty over a population for whom it makes decisions in the national interest. [3] According to the Montevideo Convention, a state must have a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. [4]
Zambia's formal northern frontier boundary was legally signed in the Anglo-Belgian Treaty of 1894, long after the 1884 Berlin Conference.This showed that the triangle of land at the northwestern point of Eastern Rhodesia from Pweto to as far south as the Lunchinda River was under Northern Rhodesia even though the Belgian Congo had administered it for many years.
When Belgium annexed the Belgian Congo as a colony in November 1908, it was initially organised into 22 districts. Ten western districts were administered directly by the main colonial government, while the eastern part of the colony was administered under two vice-governments: eight northeastern districts formed Orientale Province, and four southeastern districts formed Katanga.
The province lay in the northeast of the country. Originally it bordered Équateur to the west, Congo-Kasaï to the southwest and Katanga to the south. After being reduced in size, it bordered Équateur to the west, Kasaï-Oriental province to the southwest, Maniema to the south, and North Kivu to the southeast.