Why Are There Two Congos?

have you ever wondered why there are two congo's in Central Africa there are two countries that both have very similar names the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its neighbor at the much smaller country the Republic of the Congo sometimes to differentiate the two they referred to by the name of their capital cities Congo Kinshasa and the marsh more commonly used Congo Brazzaville so why do these countries have basically the same name well the names indeed the borders of the modern-day countries both come from the colonial European things the two countries were Belgian and French colonies and the name Congo was independently used by both Belgium and France for the name of their colony named after the Congo River which formed a large part at the border between the two colonies and today the two countries although the name of the river actually came from the kingdom of Kongo an African kingdom which existed from around the 14th century during the Berlin Conference of 1884 in which the European powers divided the continent of Africa Belgium and France were awarded the lands which today are the two countries of Congo well the situation with Belgium was actually a lesson more complicated than that Congo didn't actually become a Belgian colony until 1908 before that it was known as the Congo Free State and was actually a corporate state which was privately owned by King Leopold the second he convinced the international community that he should be the owner of the land because of the humanitarian work that he was involved in and was not a net for profit however as it turned out this couldn't have been further from the truth there were so many atrocities committed during his short reign the despi deed is something referred to as the Congo Hoarders it was for that reason that he had to give up the colony which was reluctantly annexed by Belgium the smaller country the Republic of the Congo was at the time known as French Congo although this was later reorganized as part of French Equatorial Africa and something prepared to as medow Congo during this time now there's actually a third Congo Portuguese Congo today this is the small exclave of Angola which is separated from the mainland after World War two and the creation of the United Nations was when the European powers began the process of decolonization of Africa the name confusion was even greater when both countries gained their independence in 1960 when both countries named themselves the Republic of the Congo again the capital city was used to avoid ambiguity other while time was Congo Leopoldville and Congo Brazzaville in 1964 herbert congo Leopoldville changed its name to what we know as today the Democratic Republic of the Congo two years after that and the country's capital city's name was changed to what we know as today as well Kinshasa the government at the time really wanted to Destin's himself from the colonial past for the first five years of Independence the country was in turmoil and was today often referred to as the congo crisis after the first democratically elected prime minister Patrice Lumumba was arrested and later assassinated power was seized by Mobutu Sese Seko who has significant backing from the United States and Belgium establishing a military dictatorship and in 1971 changed the name of the country to the Republic of Zaire both Congress became involved in the Cold War but found themselves on opposite sides of the conflict the Republic of the Congo had very close ties with the Soviet Union and the kimmel one-party communist state in 1969 after a coup by Mary Ann and guava who has some control and established the People's Republic of the Congo with the Congolese Workers Party as the government both the Republic of Zaire and the People's Republic of the Congo came to an end in the 1990s Zaire collapsed due to instability and the general region primarily caused by the Rwandan genocide and the violence spelled over as well as the refugees who fled the country becoming the Democratic Republic of the Congo once again in 1987 with the a bursting of Maputo who fled the country as the first Congo war began the People's Republic of the Congo established multi-party elections and 1982 with the fall of communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union changing her name and flag to what they are today so that's how we ended up with to Congress to European colonies that were both named after the Congo River which was named after the African kingdom of Kongo now this isn't the only example of countries having very similar names stacking with Africa and we have Guinea guinea-bissau and Equatorial Guinea and it's pretty much the same situation all were former colonies French Guinea Portuguese Guinea and Spanish Guinea respectively all named after the general western region of Africa known as Jenny of course is also Papa New Guinea in Southeast Asia the Eggland's was named New Guinea as the explorers thought the locals resembled the people of the African region of Guinea and one of the local names for the island was Papa hence Papa New Guinea New Guinea should not be confused with a completely unrelated Guyana where yet again we found a somewhat similar naming situation in South America there were five European colonies and the region known as Guiana Spanish British Dutch French and Portuguese Guiana these became part of Venezuela the independent country of Guyana the country of Sudan and the overseas Department of French Guiana and para Frisell there are other examples of this such as Niger and Nigeria both named after the Niger River and some countries that sound alike that are completely coincidental for example Austria and Australia although interestingly enough both countries were named after points on a compass but different points and in different languages Austria comes from the German for West while Australia comes from the Latin for South now in a somewhat related topic something you may have noticed about a few of the African nations that I've mentioned in this video the Republic of the Congo Guinea and Guinea Bissau is that they all have the same color on their flag green yellow and red the colors were originally used by Ethiopia our country which managed to remain outside of European colonial rule because of this many newly independent Africa Nations chose to use these colors as a symbol of their freedom for European bro once they gained their independence in the mid 20th century more than a dozen countries in Africa shared us color scheme which has become a symbol for pan-africanism the unity of those of African descent the two congo's indeed the three guineas all got their names and international borders from the European colonization of Africa attained when Imperial European powers to control almost the entire continent primarily for economic gain the colonization of Africa is a topic which I plan on doing an entire video about in the near future so hopefully you're subscribed and don't miss that when it comes out but for now I just want to say thanks for watching this slightly short of the normal video I'll see you next thing

Channel: WonderWhy

Views: 1,547,238

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Id: yA4uvWhvmHw

Length: 7min 23sec (443 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 06 2018