Central African Republic

The Central African Republic is in the middle of Africa.

It has no sea. It has grassland, forests and big rivers. The capital city is Bangui.

The Central African Republic is right in the center of Africa. It has no coast, and it is roughly the size of France. Most of the country is a huge, gently rolling plateau. Rivers in the north flow toward Lake Chad, and rivers in the south flow into the Congo River.

The capital, Bangui, stands on the Ubangi River on the southern border. About 5.5 million people lived in the country in 2025, spread thinly across the land. French and Sango are the official languages, and almost nine out of ten people speak Sango.

The Central African Republic is landlocked, roughly the size of France, and bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan and South Sudan to the north and east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo to the south, and Cameroon to the west. It occupies an immense rolling plateau whose southwest–northeast crest is the drainage divide between the Lake Chad and Congo basins: tributaries of the Chari drain the northern third, and the rest drains south to the Ubangi.

The country is sparsely populated, with 5,513,282 people in 2025 (World Bank); about three-fifths are rural and more than two-fifths are under 15. French and Sango are official, and Sango is a lingua franca for nearly nine-tenths of people. Britannica notes that the area has been settled for at least 8,000 years. Faustin-Archange Touadéra is president (2026).

Bangui is the biggest city.

It sits next to a wide river. In the north there is a huge park with many animals. In the south there are deep, green forests.

Bangui began as a French trading post in 1889 on the banks of the Ubangi River. Today it mixes wooded hills and grassy meadows with busy neighborhoods, and it is known for its lively music. Other towns include Berbérati, Bouar and Bossangoa in the west, Bambari and Bria in the middle, and Bangassou on the Ubangi.

The country has two World Heritage Sites. Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park, in the north, is the largest park in the savannas of Central Africa. In the southwest, Dzanga-Ndoki National Park is part of the Sangha Trinational, a giant rainforest park shared with Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo.

Bangui, founded as a French trading post in 1889, sprawls along the Ubangi; Britannica describes wooded hills and grassy meadows, crowded neighborhoods, modern residential districts and a vibrant nightlife and musical culture. A significant share of the urban population lives there. Other major towns are Berbérati, Bossangoa and Bouar in the west, Bambari and Bria on the central plains, and Bangassou and Mobaye on the Ubangi.

Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park (UNESCO, 1988), 1,740,000 ha, is the largest park in the Central African savannas and covers the watersheds of the Manovo, Koumbala and Gounda rivers; it has been on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 1997. The Sangha Trinational (UNESCO, 2012) joins Dzanga-Ndoki National Park with Lobéké in Cameroon and Nouabalé-Ndoki in the Republic of the Congo, 746,309 ha of mostly intact Congo Basin forest, with the Dzanga-Sangha Forest Reserve in its buffer zone.

The north is grassy and dry for part of the year.

The south has thick, wet rainforest. Big rains fall almost every day in the rainy season. Many rivers flow through the land.

Most of the Central African Republic is a high, rolling plateau with mountains around its edges. Mount Ngaoui, in the Karre Mountains in the west, is the highest point, at about 1,410 meters.

The rainy season lasts from about March to October, when heavy storms come almost every day. In the dry season, a dry wind called the harmattan blows, and it can reach 40 °C by day but feel much cooler at night. Grassy savanna covers most of the country, and dense rainforest grows in the south along the Ubangi and Sangha rivers.

The central plains rise to the Bongos Massif in the northeast (1,330 m at Mount Toussoro), the Tondou Massif in the east and, in the west, the granite Karre Mountains, where Mount Ngaoui, about 1,410 m, is the highest point; the Dar Challa range reaches 1,326 m near the Sudan border. Waterways are plentiful: the Chari's tributaries in the north and the Ubangi system in the south.

A moist savanna climate in the north gives way to an equatorial forest zone in the south. During the rainy season (March to October or November), southwesterly monsoon winds bring almost daily storms, up to 1,800 mm a year in the upper Ubangi, with temperatures of 19–30 °C. The harmattan dry season, from October to February or March, brings 18–40 °C and dust storms in the far north. Savanna vegetation ranges from fire-resistant scrub to gallery forests, while dense rainforest lines the Ubangi and Sangha rivers.

Forest elephants live in the rainforest.

Gorillas and chimpanzees live there too. Buffalo and antelope live on the grassland. Hippos and crocodiles live in the rivers.

In the savannas live many kinds of antelope, plus baboons, buffalo and elephants. The rainforests of the south are home to forest elephants, which are smaller than savanna elephants, and to gorillas, chimpanzees, leopards and a striped forest antelope called the bongo. Hippos and crocodiles live in the rivers.

In the southwest, the Dzanga-Ndoki forests protect forest elephants, western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees and the bongo. In the north, about 320 kinds of birds have been recorded in Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park.

Britannica lists antelopes, baboons, buffalo and elephants in the savannas, and forest elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees and other primates, leopards and the endangered bongo in the rainforests; rivers hold many fish, crocodiles and hippos, and the bird, bat, snake and butterfly fauna is rich. UNESCO describes the Sangha Trinational as a mostly intact forest landscape with viable populations of forest elephants, critically endangered western lowland gorillas, endangered chimpanzees, sitatunga and bongo, and forest clearings that draw large wildlife gatherings.

Manovo-Gounda St Floris lies where savanna species of East and West Africa meet forest species of the south; UNESCO records about 57 mammal and some 320 bird species there, including at least 25 raptors, and the shoebill has been observed. The park has been listed as in danger since 1997, and Britannica notes that overhunting has hit some large animals hard.

About 5.5 million people live here.

Almost everyone can speak Sango. People also speak French and many other languages. Most families live in the countryside.

Many different peoples live in the Central African Republic. The Aka are forest people of the west and south, and their ancestors were probably the first people in the land. Other peoples include the Zande and Nzakara, and languages such as Gbaya, Banda, Ngbaka, Sara, Mbum, Kare and Mandjia are spoken.

Sango is a shared language that almost everyone can use to talk with people from other groups, and French is official too. About three out of five people live in the countryside, mostly in the south and west, and more than two out of five are children under 15.

Britannica describes peoples ranging from the Aka, forest hunter-gatherers, to state-forming groups such as the Zande and Nzakara. Before Europeans arrived in the late 19th century, group identities were fluid and many people identified with a clan; French colonizers promoted ethnic and regional distinctions and helped create an elite drawn from southern riverine peoples such as the Ngbaka, Yakoma and Ubangi. Languages include Gbaya, Banda, Ngbaka, Sara, Mbum, Kare and Mandjia; Sango, originally a language of the Ubangi region, was spread by missionaries in the 1940s and 1950s and is now a lingua franca for nearly nine-tenths of people.

Nearly seven-tenths of people are Christian and more than one-tenth follow traditional religions, with a growing Sunni Muslim community. About three-fifths live in rural areas, mainly in the south and west, while the east and northeast are thinly populated.