Congo

🇨🇬 Congo

Brazzaville

Brazzaville (population 2.3 million: the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville — the western Congo, as distinct from the Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo-Kinshasa) on the opposite bank of the Congo River)) is one of the most geographically remarkable capitals in the world: the two cities of Brazzaville and Kinshasa (the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo) face each other across the Congo River — at only 4km, they are the two closest national capitals in the world. The city was founded in 1880 by the Italian-born French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza (the most important French explorer in Central Africa: de Brazza signed a treaty with the Teke king Makoko (the "Makoko Treaty" of 1880 — the most important colonial treaty in the history of the French Congo) and established the "Pointe noire" fort (later renamed Brazzaville in his honor) as the first French colonial outpost in the Congo Basin). Brazzaville is the home of the most important Sapeur culture in Africa: the S.A.P.E. (the "Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes" — the Society of the Ambiance-Setters and Elegant People: the most extraordinary fashion subculture in Africa — the Congolese men and women who express their dignity and their defiance of poverty through the most extravagant and the most carefully curated designer fashion: the "sapeurs" (the members of the S.A.P.E.) are the most photographed and the most internationally recognized subculture in Central Africa).