Kinshasa

About Kinshasa

Kinshasa faces Brazzaville across the Congo River, and no two capital cities in the world sit closer together, save Rome and the Vatican. Spread along the southern shore of Pool Malebo, the wide lake-like stretch where the river pauses before its rapids, it is the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and one of Africa's largest cities, with an estimated population well above 15 million. It is also the biggest French-speaking city on Earth.

Henry Morton Stanley set up a trading post here in 1881 and named it Léopoldville after the Belgian king. The name changed to Kinshasa in 1966, after an older village on the site. The city grew from a colonial river port into a sprawling metropolis of 24 communes, from the tidy avenues of Gombe to the dense, noisy streets of Matonge and Limete.

Visitors come for Congolese rumba and the nightlife that carries it, the new National Museum, the Académie des Beaux-Arts and the bonobos of Lola ya Bonobo. The rapids at Kinsuka show the river's raw power, and boats cross to Brazzaville when the border is open.