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The Kingdom of Kongo (Kongo: Kongo Dya Ntotila [6] [7] [8] or Wene wa Kongo; [9] Portuguese: Reino do Congo) was a kingdom in Central Africa. It was located in present-day northern Angola , the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo , [ 10 ] southern Gabon and the Republic of the Congo . [ 11 ]
Kongo oral tradition suggests that the Kingdom of Kongo was founded before the 14th century and the 13th century. [ 23 ] [ 24 ] The kingdom was modeled not on hereditary succession as was common in Europe, but based on an election by the court nobles from the Kongo people.
Mbanza Kongo (formerly called Nkumba a Ngudi, Mongo wa Kaila and Kongo dia Ngunga [6] [7]) was founded by the first manikongo, Lukeni, at a junction of major trade routes. [8]: 202 The Kingdom of Kongo at its peak reached from southern Africa's Atlantic coast to the Nkisi River.
The Kingdom of Kongo controlled much of western and central Africa including what is now the western portion of the DR Congo between the 14th and the early 19th centuries. At its peak it had many as 500,000 people, and its capital was known as Mbanza-Kongo (south of Matadi, in modern-day Angola). In the late 15th century, Portuguese sailors ...
The Kongo are the largest ethnic group and form roughly half of the population. The most significant subgroups of the Kongo are Laari, in Brazzaville and Pool regions, and the Vili, around Pointe-Noire and along the Atlantic coast. The second largest group is the Teke, who live to the north of Brazzaville, with 16.9% of the population.
The earliest inhabitants of the region comprising present-day Congo were the Forest peoples whose Stone Age culture was slowly replaced by Bantu tribes. The main Bantu tribe living in the region were the Kongo, also known as Bakongo, who established mostly unstable kingdoms along the mouth, north and south, of the Congo River.
As the ruler of Kongo during a transformative and disruptive period of Kongolese history, Afonso's reign has been the area of historical study. Virtually all that is known about Kongo in the time of Afonso's reign is known from his long series of letters, written in Portuguese, primarily to the kings Manuel I and João III of Portugal. The ...
The Kongo and the Kuba were the largest political entities in the precolonial Congo area. However, there were numerous other, much smaller states scattered throughout the territory in the north and northeast, with Pygmies and other primarily hunter-gatherer populations located mostly in the southern portions of the region.