Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea is a country in Africa.

Part of it is on the mainland. Part of it is on islands in the sea. People speak Spanish there.

Equatorial Guinea is on the west coast of Africa, close to the equator. Its mainland part, Río Muni, sits between Cameroon and Gabon. Out in the sea are its five islands: Bioko, Corisco, Great Elobey, Little Elobey and faraway Annobón.

Spanish is the main shared language, because Spain ruled here until 1968; French and Portuguese are official too. In 2026 the government named a new capital, Ciudad de la Paz, on the mainland. The old capital, Malabo, is on Bioko.

Britannica describes Equatorial Guinea as Río Muni (Continental Equatorial Guinea) plus five islands; Bioko lies off Cameroon in the Bight of Biafra, and Annobón, a volcanic island south of the equator, is about 650 km southwest of Bioko. A presidential decree of January 2, 2026, declared Ciudad de la Paz the capital, giving state bodies one year to move there from Malabo.

The statistics office INEGE reports that the IV General Census of 2015 counted 1,225,377 people, with Bata the largest city; it estimated 1,668,768 people in 2024. Spanish, French (official since 1997) and Portuguese are official; Spanish is the language of schools and the press. Offshore oil and gas, exploited since the 1980s, now provide more than four-fifths of GDP, though most people still farm.

Bata is the biggest city.

It is on the mainland coast. Malabo is a city on the island of Bioko. Green hills and old volcanoes cover Bioko.

Bata, on the mainland coast, is the largest city. Malabo, on the north coast of Bioko, has a good harbor built inside the edge of an old, partly sunken volcano. The new capital, Ciudad de la Paz, is being built inland on the mainland.

Bioko is about 72 kilometers long. Its towns include Luba, shown in the hero photo with houses on green hills. The far south of the island, around San Antonio de Ureca, is remote and very wild.

Bata is the main city of Río Muni. Malabo's relatively good harbor occupies the partially sunken rim of a volcano on Bioko's north coast; elsewhere Bioko's coast is mostly a cliff about 20 m high, and the steep southern coast, with San Antonio de Ureca among the most isolated settlements, is dangerous to shipping. Rivers such as the Musola supply hydroelectric power.

Bioko, about 72 km by 35 km, contrasts with the mainland in its volcanic cones, crater lakes and rich lava soils. Monte Alén National Park, on the mainland, protects thick rainforest with gorillas, chimpanzees and hundreds of bird species. The hero photo shows houses on green hills above a road in Luba, on Bioko.

Thick rainforest covers much of the mainland.

Bioko island has tall old volcanoes. It is hot and rainy for most of the year. Clouds often cover the sky.

On the mainland, a sandy coast and a narrow plain rise to hills and high plains toward Gabon. Dense rainforest, with more than 140 kinds of timber trees, covers much of the land, and mangroves line the coast and rivers.

Bioko is made of old volcanoes. Its highest peak, Pico Basilé, is an extinct volcano about 3,000 meters high. The climate everywhere is hot, wet and cloudy. The south of Bioko is one of the rainiest places on Earth: around San Antonio de Ureca, about 11,400 millimeters of rain fall in a year.

Río Muni's coastal plain, about 20 km wide, gives way to hills and mesetas rising toward Gabon; its ranges are segments of Gabon's Cristal Mountains, and the Mbini (Woleu) River crosses the center. Old metamorphic rocks have weathered into relatively infertile soils. Rainforest with more than 140 timber species, notably okoume, African walnut and mahoganies, has long been logged and largely replaced by secondary growth.

Bioko rises in the north to Pico Basilé (Santa Isabel Peak), an extinct volcano Britannica gives as 3,008 m; Moca Heights in the center and the Gran Caldera range in the south have crater lakes. The climate is equatorial: Bata averages about 2,400 mm of rain a year and Bioko about 25 °C, with a November–March dry season, while monsoon rains bring about 11,400 mm a year around San Antonio de Ureca. Annobón, a small cluster of volcanic cones, rises to about 670 m.

Gorillas and chimpanzees live in the rainforest.

Mandrills have bright blue and red faces. Forest elephants walk under the trees. Huge Goliath frogs live in the rivers.

The mainland's rainforest is home to gorillas, chimpanzees, many kinds of monkeys, leopards, forest buffalo, antelopes, elephants, hippos, crocodiles and pythons. The Goliath frog, the biggest frog in the world, and the colorful mandrill live here too.

Bioko has no big animals like elephants, but it has several kinds of monkeys, small antelopes and rodents. Sea turtles swim in the coastal waters. Monte Alén National Park helps protect gorillas, chimpanzees and hundreds of kinds of birds.

Britannica lists gorillas, chimpanzees, monkeys, leopards, buffalo, antelope, elephants, hippopotamuses, crocodiles and pythons for the mainland, plus abundant insects including tsetse flies and Anopheles mosquitoes; Bioko has no big game but has monkeys, dwarf antelopes and rodents. The country also lies inside the IUCN-mapped native ranges of the western gorilla, mandrill, African forest elephant, grey parrot, Goliath frog and green and hawksbill sea turtles.

Monte Alén National Park protects rainforest with gorillas, chimpanzees and hundreds of bird species. The mandrill and Goliath frog photos show the species, not Equatorial Guinea itself; the gorilla photo was taken at a primate park in the Netherlands.

Many groups of people live in Equatorial Guinea.

The biggest group is the Fang. The Bubi people have lived on Bioko for a long time. Cooks use fish, peanuts and pumpkin seeds.

The Fang are the largest group, more than half of all people, and live mostly on the mainland. The Bubi are the first people of Bioko. Coastal groups such as the Kombe and Benga, Fernandinos on Bioko and the people of Annobón add to the mix. Each group has its own language, such as Fang or Bubi, and Spanish links them all.

Cooks use fish, shrimp, crayfish, pumpkin seeds, peanuts and vegetables, and a popular way to cook fish is to wrap it in banana or plantain leaves over a fire. Fang music uses harps, xylophones, big drums and wooden trumpets.

The Fang, well over half the population, dominate Río Muni (Ntumu Fang north of the Mbini, Okak Fang south). Coastal peoples such as the Kombe, Mabea, Lengi and Benga have had long contact with Europeans. The Bubi, Bantu-speaking original inhabitants of Bioko, are matrilineal; Fernandinos descend from Africans freed by the British in the 19th century; and Annobonese descend from enslaved Africans brought by the Portuguese.

Each group speaks its own language; an English-based creole is the lingua franca of Bioko's markets, and a Portuguese patois is spoken on Bioko and Annobón. Roman Catholicism and Spanish culture sit alongside revived customs. Spanish-language writers such as Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo, Juan-Tomás Ávila Laurel and María Nsue Angüe are internationally known. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, swimmer Eric Moussambani, who had learned to swim that year, was cheered for winning his 100 m freestyle heat.