25 provinces (provinces, singular - province) and one neutral city* (ville neutre): Bas-Uélé, Équateur, Haut-Katanga, Haut-Lomami, Haut-Uélé, Ituri, Kasaï, Kasaï-Central, Kasaï Oriental, Kinshasa*, Kongo Central, Kwango, Kwilu, Lomami, Lualaba, Mai-Ndombe, Maniema, Mongala, Nord-Kivu, Nord-Ubangi, Sankuru, Sud-Kivu, Sud-Ubangi, Tanganyika, Tshopo, and Tshuapa.
Population:
65,751,512 (July 2007 est.) Estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS, this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected.
Languages:
French (official), Lingala (a lingua franca trade language), Kingwana (a dialect of Kiswahili or Swahili), Kikongo, Tshiluba
Geographic coordinates:
0° 00' N, 25° 00' E
Area total:
2,345,410 sq. km
Land area:
2,267,600 sq. km
Water area:
77,810 sq. km
Total land boundaries:
10,730 km
Borders with neighbor countries:
Angola 2,511 km (of which 225 km is the boundary of Angola's discontiguous Cabinda Province), Burundi 233 km, Central African Republic 1,577 km, Republic of the Congo 2,410 km, Rwanda 217 km, Sudan 628 km, Tanzania 459 km, Uganda 765 km, Zambia 1,930 km
Coastline:
37 km
Elevation extremes:
Atlantic Ocean 0 m - Pic Marguerite on Mont Ngaliema (Mount Stanley) 5,110 m
Internet country code:
.cd
Currency:
Congolese franc (CDF)
Name - abbreviation:
DROC
Name - conventional long form:
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Name - conventional short form:
none
Name - local long form:
Republique Democratique du Congo
Name - local short form:
none
Former name:
Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Congo/Leopoldvill
Independence:
30 June 1960 (from Belgium)
Constitution:
February 18, 2006, the Democratic Republic of Congo adopted a new constitution. 24 June 1967, amended August 1974, revised 15 February 1978, amended April 1990, transitional constitution promulgated in April 1994, in November 1998, a draft constitution was approved by former President Laurent KABILA but it was not ratified by a national referendum, one outcome of the ongoing inter-Congolese dialogue is to be a new constitution
Government type:
dictatorship, presumably undergoing a transition to representative government