DR Congo 🇨🇩

DR Congo is an independent state in Middle Africa, and a member of the United Nations. In formal use it is Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kinshasa is the capital.

Around 109.3 million people live there, placing it 15th of 249 by population — between the Philippines above it and Vietnam below. Among the 10 entries in Middle Africa it ranks 1st by area and 1st by population.

By land area it covers 2,344,858 km², which ranks it 12th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Algeria and just ahead of Greenland. For scale, it is almost exactly the same size as Algeria.

Density comes out at around 47 people per square kilometre, which makes it less crowded than the typical entry on this list. The median across all 249 entries here is about 91 per square kilometre.

Someone from DR Congo is a Congolese.

5 languages carry official status: French, Kikongo, Lingala, Swahili and Tshiluba. Tshiluba is listed for no other entry in this dataset, which makes it effectively unique to DR Congo. French, the first listed, is shared with 45 other entries worldwide.

Inside Africa it places 4th of 59 by population, and it accounts for 49% of everyone living in Middle Africa.

Within Middle Africa, DR Congo is the most populous of the 10 entries this site lists, and the largest by area as well. Angola is next in line by population.

Every entry in Middle Africa has its own guide here, so if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time, Angola is the place to carry on.

• 🇦🇴 Angola
• 🇨🇩 DR Congo

Its reference point sits at 0.0° north and 25.0° east, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 0 km from the equator, in what geographers would call the equatorial belt.

The equator passes across it. Countries on the same parallel, far away in longitude, include Kiribati, Singapore and Nauru.

Its land neighbours number 9: Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The largest of them by area is Angola, while the most populous is Tanzania. Together those neighbours hold about 229.7 million people.

It has both a coastline and land borders, which is the most common arrangement of all.

Put next to every other entry on this site, DR Congo ranks 12th of 249 by area and 15th by population. That works out at 1.6% of the combined land area of all 249 entries and 1.3% of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.

For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of DR Congo in the size ordering are Algeria at 2,381,741 km² and Greenland at 2,166,086 km², against DR Congo's 2,344,858 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. DR Congo averages 47 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it thinly settled by global standards — 170th of the 247 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.

The Congolese franc (CDF) is used only in DR Congo among the 249 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. French is listed for 46 entries here, DR Congo among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.

Money there is the Congolese franc (FC, CDF). No other entry in this dataset uses it, so the currency is specific to DR Congo.

Websites there use the .cd domain. To phone it from abroad you dial +243. Standard country codes: cd and COD.

If a quiz asks for the capital of DR Congo, the answer is Kinshasa.

DR Congo is one of the 192 UN member states in this dataset. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.