Kinshasa

Kinshasa is a very big city in the middle of Africa. Millions of people live there.

It sits beside the Congo River. The river is very wide here.

Kinshasa is the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo). It stands on the south bank of the Congo River, about 515 kilometers (320 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean. The people of the city are called Kinois.

Nobody knows exactly how many people live here, because the last census was taken in 1984. That census counted about 2.7 million people. The country's national statistics institute projected about 14.6 million for 2020. Encyclopaedia Universalis calls Kinshasa one of the largest cities in sub-Saharan Africa.

Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Encyclopaedia Universalis describes it as a special political unit that counts as a region of the country, with its own governor; the city-province covers 9,965 km². Its residents are known locally as Kinois.

Counting them is hard. The last census, on 1 July 1984, recorded 2,664,309 people in the city-province. The Institut National de la Statistique has since published projections: 8,683,000 for 2010, 11,575,000 for 2015 and 14,565,700 for 2020. City Population, which collects these official figures, warns that all population figures for the country are of low reliability, so the projection is best read as an order of size, not a count.

Across the river is another city, called Brazzaville. It is in a different country.

Near Kinshasa, young bonobos with no mothers are cared for. Bonobos are apes, a little like chimpanzees.

Kinshasa stretches along the river beside Pool Malebo, a wide, lake-like part of the Congo River. Right across the water stands Brazzaville, the capital of a different country, the Republic of the Congo.

An hour or so outside the city is Lola ya Bonobo, a sanctuary for orphaned bonobos rescued from the illegal wildlife trade. Caretakers nurse them back to health, and some are later released into a protected forest far away. The University of Kinshasa, founded in 1954, lies south of the city center.

The Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana places Kinshasa along the left bank of the lower Congo, facing Brazzaville and beside Pool Malebo (once called Stanley Pool), a broad widening of the river. Brazzaville is the capital of the neighboring Republic of the Congo, so two capitals face each other across the same stretch of water.

Lola ya Bonobo takes in orphaned bonobos rescued from the illegal wildlife trade and cares for them as long as needed, sometimes for the rest of their lives, according to Friends of Bonobos, the US group that supports it. The sanctuary releases bonobos at the Ekolo ya Bonobo Community Reserve in Équateur Province, about 500 miles away by plane, and has hosted scientists since at least 2005, when researcher Brian Hare first went there to compare bonobos and chimpanzees. Friends of Bonobos calls it the world's only bonobo sanctuary. The University of Kinshasa, founded in 1954, is a center of higher education.

Boats come and go on the river at Kinshasa. Long ago, a railway was built from the city toward the sea.

Kinshasa also has an international airport for planes.

Kinshasa is an important river port. Below the city, the Congo River drops over falls, so a railway and a road were built around them to link the city with the sea. The railway, from the town of Matadi downstream, arrived in 1898. Upstream, Henry Morton Stanley had opened a river route north to the town now called Kisangani.

The city also has an international airport, N'Djili, on its eastern side.

Kinshasa's growth followed its transport links. The Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana calls it a very important river port, and notes that a railway and a road join it to the sea by getting around the stretch of falls downstream. That railway, from Matadi, reached Léopoldville in 1898, and Encyclopaedia Universalis dates the town's rise to its arrival.

Upstream, Stanley had already opened a river route north to Stanleyville (Kisangani since 1966), so goods could move by boat into the interior, then by train to the coast. An air link to Stanleyville followed in 1920. Today the city is served by N'Djili International Airport, on its eastern side.

Rumba is a kind of music and dance. It is played in Kinshasa and other cities of the two Congos.

Two people often dance the rumba together, as a pair.

Congolese rumba is a kind of music and dance found in the cities of both Congos, including Kinshasa. It is usually danced by a couple. In 2021, UNESCO added Congolese rumba to its list of the world's living heritage.

Young people learn rumba in neighborhood clubs, music schools and community groups, where rumba musicians take on apprentices and teach them to play and even to make instruments.

UNESCO inscribed Congolese rumba on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021, nominated jointly by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo. UNESCO describes it as a musical genre and dance common in the urban areas of both countries, usually danced by a male-female couple and descended from an older dance called nkumba, meaning 'waist' in Kikongo.

Rumba is played at celebrations and in times of mourning, by professional and amateur orchestras, choirs and solo musicians, and UNESCO notes that women have shaped its religious and romantic styles. It is passed on through neighborhood clubs, training schools and community organizations, where musicians take on apprentices to keep both the playing and the making of instruments alive.