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Boma, Democratic Republic Of The Congo
Boma is a port town on the Congo River, some upstream from the Atlantic Ocean, in the Kongo Central province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, adjacent to the border with Angola. It had an estimated population of 162,521 in 2012. Boma was the capital city of the Congo Free State and Belgian Congo (the modern Democratic Republic of the Congo) from 1 May 1886 to 1923, when the capital was moved to Léopoldville (since renamed Kinshasa). The port handles exports of tropical timber, bananas, cacao, and palm products. History Boma was founded by European merchants in the 16th century as an entrepôt, including for the slave trade. Trade was chiefly in the hands of Dutch merchants, but British, French and Portuguese firms also had factories there. No European power exercised sovereignty, though claims were from time to time put forward by Portugal. British explorer Henry Morton Stanley arrived here on 9 August 1877, after crossing Africa from east to west.Stanley, H.M. ...
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Flag Of The Democratic Republic Of The Congo
The national flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: drapeau de la république démocratique du Congo) is a sky blue flag, adorned with a yellow star in the upper left canton and cut diagonally by a red stripe with a yellow fimbriation. It was adopted on 20 February 2006. A new constitution, ratified in December 2005 and which came into effect in February 2006, promoted a return to a flag similar to that flown between 1963 and 1971, with a change from a royal blue to sky blue background. Blue represents peace. Red stands for "the blood of the country's martyrs", yellow the country's wealth; and the star symbol the future for the country. Colours The colours approximation is listed below: Previous flags The previous flag was adopted in 2003. It was similar to the flag used between 1960 and 1963. That flag, in turn, was based on the flag which was originally used by King Leopold's Association Internationale Africaine and was first used in 1877. The 1877 design ...
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Congo Free State
''(Work and Progress) , national_anthem = Vers l'avenir , capital = Vivi Boma , currency = Congo Free State franc , religion = Catholicism (''de facto'') , leader1 = Leopold II of Belgium , year_leader1 = 1885–1908 , title_leader = Sovereign , representative1 = F. W. de Winton , year_representative1 = 1885–1886 , representative2 = Théophile Wahis , year_representative2 = 1900–1908 , title_representative = Governor-General , today = Democratic Republic of the Congo , demonym = , area_km2 = 2,345,409 , area_rank = , percent_water = 3.32 , population_estimate = 9,130,000 , population_estimate_year = 1907 , population_density_km2 = 3.8 , GDP_PPP = , GDP_PPP_year = , HDI = , HDI_year = The Congo Free State, al ...
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Moanda, Democratic Republic Of The Congo
Moanda or Muanda is a town and territory lying on the Atlantic Ocean coast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the mouth of the Congo River., United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency It is situated in Kongo Central Province, and has a population of 90,812 as of 2012. The town has an airport and is known for its beaches, and has a few limited tourist facilities, but tourism is incidental to the main economic activities of the town. The town of Muanda is north-west of the small port of Banana in the mouth of the Congo, and southeast of Point Kipundji. The Moanda Oil Terminal, consisting of various platforms, pipelines and a permanent tanker, lies 10 miles southwest of Point Kipundji. Some 100 km upstream from Muanda, on the north bank of the Congo River, lies the city of Boma, DR Congo's second-largest port. The great width and depth of the Congo River allow seagoing vessels to reach Boma and the largest port, Matadi, despite their distance from the coa ...
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Léopoldville
Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one of the world's fastest growing megacities. The city of Kinshasa is also one of the DRC's 26 provinces. Because the administrative boundaries of the city-province cover a vast area, over 90 percent of the city-province's land is rural in nature, and the urban area occupies a small but expanding section on the western side. Kinshasa is Africa's third-largest metropolitan area after Cairo and Lagos. It is also the world's largest nominally Francophone urban area, with French being the language of government, education, media, public services and high-end commerce in the city, while Lingala is used as a ''lingua franca'' in the street. Kinshasa hosted the 14th Francophonie Summit in October 2012. Residents of Kinshasa are known as ''Kinois'' ...
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International Association Of The Congo
The International Association of the Congo (french: Association internationale du Congo), also known as the International Congo Society, was an association founded on 17 November 1879 by Leopold II of Belgium to further his interests in the Congo. It replaced the Belgian ("Committee for the Study of the Upper Congo"), which was part of the International African Association front organisation created for the exploitation of the Congo. The goals of the International Congo Society was to establish control of the Congo Basin and to exploit its economic resources. The Berlin Conference recognised the society as sovereign over the territories it controlled and on August 1, 1885, i.e. four and half months after the closure of the Berlin Conference, King Leopold's Vice-Administrator General in the Congo, announced that the society and the territories it occupied were henceforth called "the Congo Free State". Ownership and control The official stockholders of the Committee for the Stud ...
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Henry Morton Stanley
Sir Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904) was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author and politician who was famous for his exploration of Central Africa and his search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone, whom he later claimed to have greeted with the now-famous line: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?". Besides his discovery of Livingstone, he is mainly known for his search for the sources of the Nile and Congo rivers, the work he undertook as an agent of King Leopold II of the Belgians which enabled the occupation of the Congo Basin region, and his command of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. He was knighted in 1897, and served in Parliament as a Liberal Unionist member for Lambeth North from 1895 to 1900. More than a century after his death, Stanley's legacy remains the subject of enduring controversy. Although he personally had high regard for many of the native African people who accomp ...
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Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body, or institution that has the ultimate authority over other people in order to establish a law or change an existing law. In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme legitimate authority over some polity. In international law, sovereignty is the exercise of power by a state. ''De jure'' sovereignty refers to the legal right to do so; ''de facto'' sovereignty refers to the factual ability to do so. This can become an issue of special concern upon the failure of the usual expectation that ''de jure'' and ''de facto'' sovereignty exist at the place and time of concern, and reside within the same organization. Etymology The term arises from the unattested Vulgar Latin's ''*superanus'', (itself derive ...
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Slave Trade
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perform some form of work while also having their location or residence dictated by the enslaver. Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, or suffering a military defeat; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race. Slaves may be kept in bondage for life or for a fixed period of time, after which they would be granted freedom. Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty. In the course of human history, slavery was a typical feature of civilization, and was legal in most societies, but it is now outlawed in most countries of the ...
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Entrepôt
An ''entrepôt'' (; ) or transshipment port is a port, city, or trading post where merchandise may be imported, stored, or traded, usually to be exported again. Such cities often sprang up and such ports and trading posts often developed into commercial cities due to the growth and expansion of long-distance trade. These places played a critical role in trade during the days of wind-powered shipping. In modern times customs areas have largely made entrepôts obsolete, but the term is still used to refer to duty-free ports with a high volume of re-export trade. ''Entrepôt'' also means 'warehouse' in modern French, and is derived from the Latin roots 'between' + 'position', literally 'that which is placed between.' Entrepôts had an important role in the early modern period, when mercantile shipping flourished between Europe and its colonial empires in the Americas and Asia. For example, the spice trade to Europe, which necessitated long trade routes, led to a much higher ...
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Arecaceae
The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees. Currently, 181 genera with around 2,600 species are known, most of which are restricted to tropical and subtropical climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, arranged at the top of an unbranched stem. However, palms exhibit an enormous diversity in physical characteristics and inhabit nearly every type of habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts. Palms are among the best known and most extensively cultivated plant families. They have been important to humans throughout much of history. Many common products and foods are derived from palms. In contemporary times, palms are also widely used in landscaping. In many historical cultures, because of their importance ...
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Cocoa Bean
The cocoa bean (technically cocoa seed) or simply cocoa (), also called the cacao bean (technically cacao seed) or cacao (), is the dried and fully Fermentation, fermented seed of ''Theobroma cacao'', from which cocoa solids (a mixture of nonfat substances) and cocoa butter (the fat) can be extracted. Cocoa beans are the basis of chocolate, and Mesoamerican foods including tejate, an indigenous Mexico, Mexican drink that also includes maize, and pinolillo, a similar Nicaragua, Nicaraguan drink made from a cornmeal & cocoa powder. Etymology The word ''cocoa'' comes from the Spanish word , which is derived from the Nahuatl word . The Nahuatl word, in turn, ultimately derives from the reconstructed Proto-Mixe–Zoquean language, Proto-Mixe–Zoquean word ''kakawa''. Used on its own, the term ''cocoa'' may also mean: * Hot cocoa, the drink more known as ''hot chocolate'' Terms derived from ''cocoa'' include: * Cocoa paste, ground cocoa beans: the mass is melted and separated ...
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Banana
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguishing them from dessert bananas. The fruit is variable in size, color, and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich in starch covered with a rind, which may be green, yellow, red, purple, or brown when ripe. The fruits grow upward in clusters near the top of the plant. Almost all modern edible seedless ( parthenocarp) bananas come from two wild species – '' Musa acuminata'' and '' Musa balbisiana''. The scientific names of most cultivated bananas are ''Musa acuminata'', ''Musa balbisiana'', and ''Musa'' × ''paradisiaca'' for the hybrid ''Musa acuminata'' × ''M. balbisiana'', depending on their genomic constitution. The old scientific name for this hybrid, ''Musa sapientum'', is no longer used. ...
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