Explore cities →
Home › Africa › 🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo
🇨🇩

Democratic Republic of the Congo

2 city guides · Africa

Cities in Democratic Republic of the Congo (2)

Africa
🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo

Kinshasa

Kinshasa is the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — one of the most extraordinary cities in Africa: 17 million people on the south bank of the Congo River (making Kinshasa the 3rd-largest city in Africa and the largest francophone city in the world, larger than Paris), directly facing Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo (a separate country) — the only place in the world where two national capitals face each other across a river (the Kinshasa-Brazzaville twin cities are separated by only 4km of water). The Congo River (Fleuve Congo — 4,700km long, the world's deepest river (220m maximum depth) and the 2nd largest by discharge volume after the Amazon; the Congo Basin rainforest (the world's 2nd-largest tropical rainforest after the Amazon) drains into the river at Kinshasa) creates a dramatic urban setting that no other African capital can match. Kinshasa is the global capital of Soukous (Congolese rumba — the most influential popular music genre of sub-Saharan Africa, with a rhythm structure based on Cuban son and bolero adapted by Congolese guitarists in the 1940s–1960s; the guitar-driven, polyrhythmic, dance-oriented sound spread throughout Africa and influenced music from Senegal to Tanzania). The Académie des Beaux-Arts de Kinshasa produces the finest contemporary African art. Best months: June–September (the dry season).

📅 3-day itinerary →
Africa
🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo

Lubumbashi

Lubumbashi (population 2.5 million in the metropolitan area) is the second-largest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the capital of the Haut-Katanga Province — a major industrial centre in southeastern DRC, 350km north of the Zambian border city of Ndola. Lubumbashi was founded in 1910 by the Belgian colonial administration as an industrial city adjacent to the massive copper deposits of the Katanga geological province (the Copperbelt — the central African copper deposit stretching from southeastern DRC into northern Zambia; the world's richest copper deposit belt outside Chile): the Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK — the Belgian copper-mining company that operated the Katanga mines from 1906 to 1966) made Lubumbashi one of the most important industrial cities in sub-Saharan Africa in the 20th century. The Katanga Crisis (1960–1963 — the secession of the Katanga Province (under the Belgian-backed President Moise Tshombe) from the newly independent Republic of Congo immediately after independence from Belgium in June 1960; the UN intervention force (ONUC) was deployed; the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash near Ndola (Northern Rhodesia) in September 1961 while attempting to negotiate a ceasefire in the Katanga crisis; the secession ended in 1963)) defined post-colonial Lubumbashi. The city has significant Congolese cultural assets: the railway museum (Lubumbashi was the terminus of the Benguela Railway from Angola, one of the most ambitious colonial infrastructure projects in Africa), the University of Lubumbashi (the second-largest university in DRC), and a remarkable urban music scene. Best months: April–October.

📅 3-day itinerary →