Mbandaka

Mbandaka lies on the east bank of the Congo River below the mouth of the Ruki River, a tributary of the Congo. South of the Ngiri Reserve, a large area of swamp forest on the opposite bank of the Congo, it is located at the center of the Tumba-Ngiri-Maindombe Ramsar wetland.[4]

Mbandaka is the capital of Équateur province, and located only a few kilometers from the equator. It is home to Mbandaka airport and is linked by riverboat to Kinshasa and Boende.

It is located in a busy travel corridor upriver from the capital, Kinshasa. The latter city of about 10 million is an hour's plane ride away, or a four- to seven-day trip by river barge.

Mbandaka is largely populated by people of the Mongo ethnic group, although people from many different tribes and regions live in the city. The main languages spoken in Mbandaka are Lingala, French, and Mongo.

Years of war and neglect have caused deterioration of the city infrastructure; large areas of the city are without electricity or running water. Most of the streets and avenues of the city are unpaved dirt roads.

Bank of the Belgian Congo building

Mbandaka was founded in 1883 by British explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who named it "Équateurville". (At the time the territory was under the personal rule of King Leopold II, king of the Belgians and the official language was French.)

The town hall is about 4 km (2.5 miles) north of the equator. Mbandaka is one of the closest to the equator of any substantial city in the world. Stanley placed a large "Equator Stone" near the riverbank south of the city to mark the point where he believed the equator crossed the river. It remains there today. Due to its symbolic location close to the equator and the Congo River, there were early plans to locate the capital of the Congo Free State in Coquilhatville, as the city was then called, but they never came off the drawing board. These plans included infrastructure for an estimated population of 100,000 people, a train station, a Catholic cathedral, a governor's residence, and a palace for future visits of King Leopold II of the Belgians.[5]

In 1886, at the beginning of colonial rule, the Belgians changed the city's name to "Coquilhatville" naming it after Camille-Aimé Coquilhat.

In 1938, work began on a bridge over the Congo River connecting Coquilhatville with the French Congo (now the Republic of Congo). Work was abandoned on the outbreak of the Second World War, and only the foundations of the bridge pillars remain. In the 1930s, the Government of the Belgian Congo began several projects, including factories and a new city hall.

The city hall was completed in 1947, just after the end of the Second World War. At that time, with a height of 39 m (128 feet), it was the tallest building in the Belgian Congo. A statue of Leopold II was installed on its roof. The city hall was destroyed by a fire in 1963.[6]

After the Belgian Congo gained its independence as the Republic of the Congo, the new government changed the name of this city in 1966 to "Mbandaka" to honour a prominent local leader.

Mbandaka has a tropical rainforest climate (Af) under the Köppen climate classification. Although precipitation in the city does vary considerably, it does not have a dry season; the driest month is January, averaging around 3.2 inches or 81.3 millimetres of precipitation. The wettest is October with 8.4 inches or 213.4 millimetres. Temperatures are relatively constant throughout the course of the year, with median temperatures ranging from 74.0 to 79.0 °F (23.3 to 26.1 °C).[14]

The city is located at the center of the Tumba-Ngiri-Maindombe area, designated a Wetland of International Importance by the Ramsar Convention in 2008.[16]

• Guy Loando Mboyo
• Roger Hitoto
• Frédéric Boyenga-Bofala
• José Bosingwa
• Adam Bombolé
• Issama Mpeko
• Banza Mukalay
• Jules Fontaine Sambwa

• University of Mbandaka
• Mbandaka Airport

• The Botanical Gardens of Zaire and the Present State of Biodiversity in Zaire
• "Villes de RD Congo - Mbandaka" (in French). MONUC. 2006-05-29. Retrieved 2008-09-16.