Angola

officially the Republic of Angola Portuguese República de Angola, pronounced IPA Repubilika ya Ngola a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean. The exclave province of Cabinda has a border with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Angola was a Portuguese overseas territory from the century to .

The country is the second largest petroleum and diamond producer in sub-Saharan Africa; however, its life expectancy and infant mortality rates are both among the worst ranked in the world. According to the International Monetary Fund, more than billion in oil receipts have disappeared from Angola's treasury in the. In August , a peace treaty was signed with a faction of the FLEC, a separatist guerrilla group from the Cabinda exclave in the North, which is still active. About of Angola's oil comes from that region.

Are some of the earliest known modern human inhabitants of the area. They were largely replaced by Bantu tribes during the Bantu migration, though small numbers of Khoisans remain in parts of southern Angola to the present day. The Bantu came from the north, probably from somewhere near the present day Republic of Cameroon. When they reached what is now Angola, they encountered the Khoisans, Bushmen and other groups considerably less advanced than themselves, whom they easily dominated with their superior knowledge of metal working, ceramics and agriculture. The establishment of the Bantus took many centuries and gave rise to various groups who took on different ethnic characteristics.


The BaKongo kingdoms of Angola established trade routes with other trading cities and civilizations up and down the coast of southwestern and West Africa but engaged in little or no transoceanic trade. This contrasts with the Great Zimbabwe Mutapa civilization which traded with India, the Persian Gulf civilizations and China. They engaged in limited trading with Great Zimbabwe and traded copper and iron for salt, food and raffia textiles across the Kongo River.