Angolaofficially Republic of Angola, Portuguese República de Angola, country located in southwestern Africa between latitudes 4°22′ and 18°03′ S and longitudes 11°41′ and 24°05′ E. Roughly square in shape, with a maximum width of about 800 miles (1,300 kilometres), Angola covers 481,354 square miles (1,246,700 square kilometres), including the Cabinda exclave, which is located along the Atlantic coast just north of the Angola-Congo (Kinshasa) border. Angola is bordered to the far northwest by Congo (Brazzaville), to the north and northeast by Congo (Kinshasa), to the southeast by Zambia, to the south by Namibia, and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean. There are 1,025 miles of coast, and the land frontiers total 3,023 miles. The capital is Luanda.Angola is second only to Nigeria as an oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, and it is the largest and richest . A large country, Angola takes in a broad variety of landscapes, including the semidesert Atlantic littoral bordering Namibia’s “Skeleton Coast,” the sparsely populated rainforest interior, the rugged highlands of the south, the Cabinda exclave in the north, and the densely settled towns and cities of the northern coast and north-central river valleys. The capital and commercial centre is Luanda, a large port city on the northern coast that blends Portuguese-style colonial landmarks with traditional African housing styles and modern industrial complexes.

Angola at the beginning of the 21st century was a country ravaged by war and the related effects of land mines and malnutrition, and it was often dependent on the international community for the basics of survival. It is a country that is nevertheless rich in natural resources, including precious gems, metals, and petroleum; indeed, it ranks among the highest of the oil-producing countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It is the largest and wealthiest of the Portuguese-speaking African states. , and Portuguese influences have been felt for some 500 years, but although Angola acquired its present boundaries only in 1891. An anticolonial struggle from that began in 1961 finally led to independence in 1975 was followed by a highly destructive civil war that .


The land





From a narrow coastal plain, the land rises abruptly to the east in a series of escarpments to rugged highlands, which then slope down toward the centre of the continent. The coastal plain varies in width from about 125 miles (200 km) in the area south of Luanda to about 15 miles in the Benguela region(25 km) near Benguela. The Bié (Angolan) Plateau to the east of Benguela forms a rough quadrilateral of land above the 5,000-foot (1,500-metre) mark, culminating at about 8,600 feet (2,600 metres) and covering about one-tenth of the country’s surface. The Malanje highlands in the north-central part of the country are less extensive and lower in altitudeelevation, while the Huíla Plateau plateau in the south is smaller still but rises steeply to an elevation of approximately 7,700 feet (2,300 metres). The almost featureless plateau that covers the eastern two-thirds of Angola gradually falls away to between 1,650 and 3,300 feet (500 and 1,000 metres) at the eastern border. The highest point in the country is Mount Moco, near the city of Huambo, which reaches an elevation of 8,596 feet (2,620 metres).


The Lunda Divide forms a watershed on the plateau, separating north- and south-flowing rivers. In the northeast, rivers such as the Cuango (Kwango (Cuango) flow out of Angola into the mighty Congo River, which forms the boundary between Angola and Congo (Kinshasa) the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the final 90 miles (145 km) of its course. The central part of the plateau is drained by the Cuanza (Kwanza (Cuanza), the largest river entirely within Angola’s frontiers, which is about 620 miles (1,000 km) in length. It runs for some 300 miles roughly half its length in a northerly direction before bending westward to through a break through in the escarpment between the Malanje highlands and the Bié Plateau, and it flows into the sea about 40 miles (65 km) south of Luanda. The southwestern part of the country is drained by the Cunene River (Kunene (Cunene) River, which heads south before turning west and breaking through the escarpment at the Ruacana Falls, after which it marks the boundary between Angola and Namibia to the Atlantic Ocean. Some rivers in the southeast of the plateau flow into the Zambezi River, which itself crosses the Kazombo salient Cazombo region in the far east eastern extension of the country. Other rivers in this area feed the Okavango Swamp in Swamps of northwestern Botswana. Small rivers in the south run into the internal drainage system of the Etosha Pan in Namibia, while others, often seasonal in nature, drain the steep western slopes of the escarpment.


The coastal plain consists of alluvia, chalk, and sand, with underlain by oil-bearing structures occurring formations over the northern two-thirds. Crystalline bedrock of Precambrian age (570 between about 540 million to and 3.96 8 billion years old) crystalline bedrock emerges along the escarpment, and mineral deposits sometimes lie close to the surface. Considerable erosion has occurred in this area, and laterite formations are common. Most of the plateau in the eastern two-thirds of the country lies buried under deep deposits of infertile wind-blown windblown Kalahari sands. The river gravels of the northeast contain diamonds, and rare kimberlite pipes occur in this area.


Angola has a tropical climate with a marked dry season. The climate is largely affected by the seasonal movements of the rain-bearing intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), the northward flow of the cold Benguela Current off the coast, and altitudeelevation. Rainfall is the key determinant of climatic differentiation, and it decreases rapidly from north to south and in proximity to the Benguela Currentcoast. The Maiombe forest in the north northern part of the Cabinda exclave receives the greatest amount of rainfall, about 70 inches (1,800 millimetresmm) per year, and Huambo, on the Bié Plateau, receives 57 inches (1,450 mm). In contrast, Luanda, on the dry coast, receives about 13 inches (330 mm), while the far south southernmost part of the coastal plain gets as little as 2 inches (50 mm). The rainy season lasts from September to May in the north and from December to March in the south. Droughts frequently afflict the country, especially in the south. Temperatures vary much less than rainfall. They , however, and generally decrease with distance from the Equator, proximity to the Benguela Currentcoast, and increasing altitudeelevation. The average annual temperature in Soyo, for example, at the mouth of the Congo, is 79° F (26° C79 °F (26 °C), whereas in Huambo, on the Bié Plateau, it is 67° F (19° C67 °F (19 °C).

Plant and animal life

When the Portuguese first arrivedUntil the late 19th century, parts of Angola were covered with dense rain forestrainforest, mainly in the north northern part of the Cabinda exclave, the western edge of the Malanje highlands, the northwestern corner of the Bié Plateau, and along some rivers in the northeast. Much of this forest has been greatly diminished by agriculture and logging. Most , and now most of Angola’s surface is covered with different kinds of savanna (grasslands with scattered trees), ranging from savanna-forest mosaic in the north to thorn scrub in parts of the south. Savanna vegetation is frequently accompanied by natural Natural or man-made fires occur frequently in savanna vegetation, and tree species are thus usually resistant to fire. True desert is confined to the Namib in the far southwest, which extends north from Namibia and is the home of a unique plant, the tumboa (Weltwitschia mirabilis), which has a deep taproot and two broad, flat leaves about 10 feet (3 metres) long that lie along the desert floor.

The fauna is typical of the savanna lands of Africa. The carnivores Carnivores include leopards, lions, and hyenas, while the plant-eating animals are represented chiefly by elephants, hippopotamuses, giraffes, zebras, buffaloes, wildebeest, and different kinds of antelopes gnu (wildebeests) and various other antelopes, and monkeys. The land Angola is rich in bird species and has a wide variety of reptiles, including crocodiles. The numerous insects include mosquitoes and tsetse flies, both serious pests that carry disease. There are 13 about a dozen national parks and nature reserves, notably Iona National Park in the southeast corner of the country and Quicama National Park just south of Luanda, but checks on hunting largely broke down with the spread of civil war. The giant sable antelope (Hippotragus niger variani) is , found in the south and , is particularly vulnerable. Other endangered species are populations include the gorillas and chimpanzees of the Maiombe forest, the black rhinoceros, and the Angolan giraffe. Marine life is particularly rich in along the southsouthern coast, because of the favourable effects of the cold Benguela Current , and it includes many species of provides nutrients for many temperate-water coastal fish.

Settlement patterns

The rural population is heavily concentrated in the highlands and along watercourses running off the highlands. The Bié Plateau alone contains about half the total rural population. In the north and centre of the country people live in villages, whereas in the south, where cattle keeping is important, there is a tradition of dispersed settlement and transhumance in search of pastures. A few !Kung live as nomads in remote areas of the far south. Decades of warfare have led to much enforced settlement in large villages.

Urbanization stood at about 15 percent at the end of the colonial period, and it accelerated under the impact of civil war. More than one million people live in the capital city of Luanda, the major port and one of the oldest towns in sub-Saharan Africa. Farther south along the coastal plain, the historic town of Benguela and the port and industrial centre of Lobito are traditional rivals, while Namibe (Moçâmedes) is the port for the south and the country’s largest fishing centre. Other important northern cities are Malanje at the eastern end of the Luanda Railway, and the coastal oil towns of Cabinda and Soyo. Huambo (Nova Lisboa) is the regional capital of the Bié Plateau, and it is surrounded by a scattering of smaller towns, while Lubango (Sá da Bandeira) dominates the Huíla highlands.

The people


Ethnic and linguistic composition

Apart from a few Europeans and isolated bands of Northern Khoisan speakers such as the !Kung (a San group) in the remote southeast, all Angolans belong to the Bantu linguistic speak Bantu languages of the Niger-Congo language family, which is found throughout dominates western, central, eastern, and southern Africa. The largest ethnolinguistic group is the Ovimbundu, who speak Umbundu and who account for nearly twoabout one-fifths fourth of the population. They inhabit the Bié Plateau, have having migrated to Benguela and Lobito and areas along the Benguela Railway to the west and east, and live in fairly large numbers in Luanda. The next-largest ethnic group is the Mbundu (or AkwambunduKimbundu), who speak Kimbundu and who also make up about one-fourth of the population. They dominate the capital city and the Malanje highlands and are well represented in most coastal towns. Speaking Kikongo, the Bakongo in the far north are the third group. They account for about 15 percent of the population and are numerous in Luanda. Many Kikongo speakers are also found in neighbouring parts of Congo (Kinshasa) and Congo (Brazzaville). The Kongo (Bakongo, Esikongo)—in the far north, including the city of Luanda and parts of the countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo—speak Kikongo and account for about one-sixth of the population. Lunda, Chokwe, and Ngangela peoples live scattered through the thinly populated eastern part of the country, spilling over into Congo (Kinshasa) the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia. The Ovambo (also known as Ambo) and Herero peoples in the southwest also live in Namibia, while the closely related Nyaneka-Nkhumbi people are confined to Angola.Portuguese is the official language. It has become fairly widely spoken since independence, replacing Kimbundu as the lingua franca of Luanda, and it is understood in much of the country. English and Afrikaans peoples inhabit only Angola.



The numerous and highly localized traditional animist religions of Angola are giving way to Christianity and syncretic Afro-Christian religions. The first centuries of Portuguese presence on the coast resulted in few conversions—apart from the early and atypical case of the Kongo kingdom—and it was only in the 20th century that Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries began to have a major impact. The Roman Catholic church, to which more than two-thirds of Angola’s Christians belong, is especially well established among the Ovimbundu. Various Protestant groups, with strong American and British links, make up the remaining Christians. Baptists have traditionally worked among the Bakongo people, Methodists among the Mbundu, and Congregationalists among the Ovimbundu. Afro-Christian religions, especially the Kikongo ya leta, a Creole based on Kikongo, is also spoken in the north.


Angola’s population is overwhelmingly Christian. About three-fifths of the population is Roman Catholic, about one-sixth is Protestant, and the remainder adhere to traditional beliefs or other religions.


In the late 19th century, Protestant missionaries entered Angola and made numerous converts among both the Roman Catholic population and those who still followed traditional religions. Baptists operated in the north, Methodists in the Kimbundu-speaking regions, and Congregationalists in areas of Ovimbundu settlement and in the east. The Protestants were especially effective in the Ovimbundu area, despite the efforts of the Portuguese colonial government, which reinforced and subsidized Catholic missionary activities, sometimes harassed Protestants, and served the many Catholic settlers from Portugal who went to Angola. Since the mid-1950s, African Independent Churches, especially Our Lord Jesus Christ Church in the World (Tocoist church), have spread from Congo (Kinshasa). Protestants and Tocoists were suspected of subversion in colonial times and suffered various forms of petty persecution. All religion was frowned upon by the Marxist-Leninist government in Luanda after 1975, and religious institutions lost their schools, clinics, newspapers, radio stations, and properties. However, freedom of conscience was legally guaranteed, and the Methodist church, which educated most of the government leaders, was relatively privileged. Other Christian denominations were closely watched and occasionally harassed, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses were formally banned in 1978. Religious organizations regained considerable influence when the government abandoned communism, especially the Roman Catholic church, which played an important role behind the scenes in securing national reconciliation. Angola is unusual in Africa in having no Muslim population.

Demographic trends

With only some 10 million inhabitants and a population density of about 21 people per square mile (8 people per square kilometre), the country is thinly populated, even by African standards. Vast evangelized from bases mostly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the 1970s the church opposed Angola’s Marxist government and was subsequently banned briefly in the late 1980s.



Settlement patterns



Demographic trends


During the civil war (1975–2002), it is estimated that warfare killed about a half million people; famine and disease, exacerbated by the conflict, are estimated to have killed about an additional half a million people after 1975, but as well. However, the population growth rate remains high. The birth rate is about average for southern Africa, but the high death rate has depressed the country’s overall natural increase rate to a level well below average for the region. Life expectancy is low at 43 years for men and 46 years for women, and the population is predominantly young. Decades of warfare have resulted in about a tenth of the population living as internal refugees, congregating in the cities. remained high during this time and later increased after the end of the war. Angola’s birth rate is among the highest in the world; however, so too is the country’s infant mortality rate. Life expectancy is similar to the average for Southern Africa but is among the lowest in the world, and Angola’s population is predominantly young.

It is estimated that about half a million people fled abroad during the anticolonial war (1961–75), mainly Bakongo fleeing to Congo (Kinshasa) Kongo escaping to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and some Chokwe, Lunda, and Ngangela fleeing to Zambia. There was a renewed outflow of refugees in 1975, with the departure of more than 300,000 Portuguese and an unknown number of Africans. Many Bakongo refugees have returned to Angola, however, and there is even some immigration of Congolese Bakongo, who are attracted by employment opportunities in Angola’s oil economy.

The economy

Angola had a diversified and rapidly growing economy in the late colonial period, but it suffered badly after independence. A destructive civil war, the nationalization of most large enterprises, ineffective central planning, a heavily overvalued currency, and a constant exodus of skilled personnel were the main negative factors. From being the fourth largest coffee producer in the world, Angola sank to a position of complete insignificance. Manufacturing output slumped badly. Workers suffered a dramatic fall in living standards and were prevented from joining any kind of autonomous trade union. Angola was a net exporter of food before independence, but the country suffered from some of the worst famine conditions in Africa in the 1980s. Humanitarian aid has been hampered by poor security and political pressures. Economic reforms launched in 1988 remained largely ineffective, owing to the obstruction of the ruling party and the bureaucracy. The abandoning of Marxism-Leninism and the end of the civil war in 1991 offered new hope to a severely battered economy, which has the potential to be at the forefront of African development.

The major exception to this dismal economic record has been the oil sector, which has made giant strides, boosting Angola to rank second as an oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa. Non-Portuguese foreign capital was exempted from outright nationalization, and, although the state took a share in the oil companies, management remained firmly in foreign hands. Moreover, the oil industry was protected from the worst effects of the fighting by its location on the coast and by the presence of Cuban troops. Oil accounts for more than 90 percent of Angola’s foreign exchange earnings. Most of the rest comes from diamonds and fish, which have also remained mainly under foreign management. However, the linkage of the petroleum industry to the rest of the economy is minimal. The oil companies employ little local labour and do not reinvest their profits outside the oil sector. Nearly half of oil royalties have been spent on defense, and most of the rest has gone to pay for imports of essential foodstuffs for the urban population.


Angola’s resources are considerable in comparison to those of most African countries, and they are particularly suited to the development of an industrial economy. There are large reserves of oil and natural gas, concentrated in the maritime zones off the Cabinda exclave and the Congo estuary. Total proven recoverable reserves of crude oil stood at more than 2 billion barrels in 1990. The quality of the oil is generally good, with a low sulfur content. Natural gas reserves are estimated at about 1.8 trillion cubic feet (50 billion cubic metres). Alluvial diamonds occur widely over the northeastern quarter of the country, with a high proportion of gemstones, and there are several kimberlite pipe formations that may be mined. Large iron ore reserves exist in the southwestern part of the country, but they are low-grade. Other minerals are known to exist in commercial quantities in Angola, especially in the area of the escarpment, but a great deal of systematic prospecting work needs to be done to gain a complete picture of the country’s mineral resources. Angola’s hydroelectric potential is one of the largest in Africa, estimated at more than 7,500 megawatts. Owing to the beneficial effects of the cold Benguela Current, Angola also has some of the richest fishing grounds in Africa, especially in the far south of the country. Stickleback, sardine, mackerel, catfish, mullet, and tuna are abundant, as are crabs, lobsters, and prawns. Timber resources are significant, with some 130 million acres of forest. The Maiombe forest in the north of the Cabinda exclave contains the most valuable commercial species, notably white tola (Balsamiferum harms) and limba (Terminalia superba). There are also stands of commercial timber along the rivers of the southeast, especially mussibi (Guibourtia coleosperma)The vagaries of warfare have affected both the number of Angolans living outside the country and their situation within the country. Refugee populations both inside and outside Angola have grown during times of war—such as in the mid- to late 1980s, after the elections of 1992, and from 1998 until the end of the civil war in 2002—and such disruptions have also increased internal migrations to cities, especially Luanda.






Agriculture, forestry, and fishing



Fertile agricultural land is limited to a few favoured locations in the highlands and river valleys, and less than 10 percent one-tenth of the land area is thought to be arable. The combination of poor soils and insufficient rainfall over most of Angola is a severe limitation to the growing of cropscrop growing, although the country does contain both temperate and tropical climates. However, the country’s agricultural potential remains underutilized outside the Bié Plateau, the coastal oases, and the Ovambo floodplain on the Namibian border. Pastoralism Although pastoralism is inhibited by infestations of tsetse fly infestationflies, poor pastures, and the lack of surface water in the Kalahari Sand zone. Conditions for pastoralism are best in Namib zone, the southwestern quarter of the country .

Agriculture and forestry

Prior to independence, a large estate sector dominated by Portuguese settlers coexisted with numerous small indigenous producers. Only about 3 percent of the land area was under cultivation. Of the cultivated area, less than 1 percent was irrigated. Coffee was king, and Angola supplied 19 percent of world coffee in 1974, with an annual output of more than 200,000 tons of green coffee in the early 1970s. Production was concentrated in the Malanje highlands and along the northwestern margins of the Bié Plateau and came mainly from the plantation sector. Cotton, consumed in local industries or exported to Portugal, was produced by both smallholders and planters in the Kwango valley and the coastal plain. The local market was entirely supplied by sugar intensively cultivated under irrigation by planters in the coastal oases. Oil palms, bananas, and other tropical fruits were associated with sugar on these plantations. Sisal was an estate crop cultivated mainly on the western slopes of the Bié Plateau, but its importance diminished in the 1960s, and it was often replaced by tobacco. Angola was a net exporter of food, with corn (maize) from highland African producers as the chief commercial food crop. Cassava (manioc) was widely grown as a subsistence crop by indigenous producers, together with millet, sorghum, beans, sweet potatoes, peanuts (groundnuts), rice, wheat, and potatoes. Cattle were concentrated in the southwest and were raised partly by traditional methods and partly on large modern ranches. Other livestock played little role in the commercial economy, but goats, pigs, and chickens were important for subsistence. Timber has favourable conditions. The main subsistence crop is cassava. Commercial food crops such as coffee and sugar are again being grown; the production of palm oil and tobacco increased in the 1990s; and even cotton production has increased slightly. The greatest impediment to agriculture, whether subsistence or commercial, however, is the number of land mines that were buried throughout the countryside during years of conflict.

Prior to independence, timber extraction from natural forests was concentrated in Maiombe in the Cabinda exclave and in Luso on the eastern stretch of the Benguela Railway. Some 123,500 acres of Large eucalyptus plantations along the western stretches of the Benguela Railway provided firewood for the steam locomotives and fed the paper-pulp plant near Benguela.

This flourishing agricultural sector declined after independence. The nationalization of estates was followed by the creation of inefficient state farms. Ovimbundu contract labourers refused to work in areas where they were open to ethnically motivated attacks, notably in the coffee zones, and forced labour from the towns (the so-called voluntary brigades) proved a poor substitute. Smallholders were burdened with a centrally imposed system of cooperatives and by an inefficient public system of purchasing and distribution, which replaced the Portuguese petty traders who fled the country. The transport network deteriorated, insecurity spread throughout the country, the overvaluation of the currency acted as an increasingly heavy de facto tax on exports, and the collapse of manufacturing removed all incentives to sell to the towns. As a result, the urban population came to depend on food imported from abroad.

Agricultural collapse has been an uneven process. Subsistence crops have been little affected, commercialized food crops have done badly, and industrial raw materials and exported products have fared disastrously. Production of cassava and sweet potatoes actually rose slightly after independence, while the output of sorghum and beans fell by about 50 percent. Production of corn, bananas, and timber sank to about a quarter of their former levels, while only about a tenth of the sugar and beef output prior to 1975 was maintained. Coffee, cotton, and sisal plummeted to a mere 2 percent of former production levels.



Owing to the beneficial effects of the cold Benguela Current, Angola has some of the richest fishing grounds in Africa, especially along the far southern coast. Sticklebacks, sardines, mackerel, catfish, mullet, and tuna are abundant, as are crabs, lobsters, and prawns. Before independence, about 700 vessels were active in fishing, employing some 13,000 people, with an annual catch of about 300,000 tons; by the early 1980s fewer than one-seventh were operational, because most of the vessels had been owned by Portuguese nationals who sailed them away at independence in 1975. Namibe was the centre of this fishing industry, which stretched from Luanda in the north to the Bay of Tigres in the far south. The great majority of the catch was processed in modern factories (which either were destroyed or ceased operating after independence) and exported to Western markets frozen, canned, or as fish meal. A more , while a local and African regional market was supplied through more-traditional fish drying and curing industry supplied the local market and exported to a wider regional market before the anticolonial war began in 1961. Most of the fishing vessels, owned largely by the Portuguese, sailed away after 1975, packed with refugees, and the factories were destroyed or rusted away. Foreign boats were then given licenses to fish in Angolan waters, on condition that a proportion of the catch be landed in Angolan ports. Some of the processing works were also renovated with the assistance of foreign aid. This arrangement kept the fishing industry alive at a time when much of the rest of the economy was collapsing. The catch fell to about three-quarters of preindependence levels, possibly because of declining fish stocks resulting from past overfishing or ecological changes.


Crude oil production is central to the economy, techniques. Foreign boats overfished the region, and production has declined precipitously since the 1970s.

Resources and power


Petroleum was first discovered in 1955. Angola has become one of the largest exporters of petroleum in sub-Saharan Africa, and production has nearly tripled since independence. Because Angola is was not a member of the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) until 2007, for many years the country is was not subject to any restrictive quotas on its exports. Angola enjoys promising has also benefited from a combination of favourable geologic conditions, a high rate of exploration success, and relatively low operating costs. Production is concentrated off the coast of Cabinda, especially in the huge Takula field, and off the Congo estuary. Experiments show that deep-water operations in this zone may be profitable. There is some onshore production near Soyo and Luanda, and prospecting extends as far south as Kwanza Sul. Natural gas deposits have been found, but production is on a small scaleNatural gas has been found both associated and unassociated with petroleum, but about half of this has been burned off and the rest injected back into oil wells. A state company was set up in 1977 , under the name of the Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola (Sonangol), to engage in joint ventures and production-sharing agreements, while leaving the management of the oil business was left largely in foreign hands. Chevron (United States) controls the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, which is responsible for a little more than half of total oil output. Elf Aquitaine (France), Texaco (United States), and Petrofina SA (Belgium) are the other three companies producing oil in Angola, the latter exclusively from declining onshore oil fields. A host of other companies from around the world have been involved in prospecting for hydrocarbons, including companies from the United States, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Britain, Sweden, Norway, Brazil, and Japan.

Alluvial diamonds occur widely over the northeastern quarter of the country, with a high proportion of gem-quality stones, and there are several kimberlite pipe formations that may be mined. Before independence, Angola was the fourth largest diamond exporter in the world in terms of value, with exports standing at 2.4 million carats, but output almost ceased after 1975, rose again in the late 1970s, and then crashed once more in the 1980s. The government nationalized the 77 percent stake held by Portuguese investors in the Angola Diamond Company (Companhia de Diamantes de Angola, or Diamang) and ran diamond mining in the northeast through the but since that time output has fluctuated. The National Diamond Enterprise of Angola (Empresa Nacional de Diamantes de Angola, or Endiama), a parastatal company. Management problems were compounded by corruption, insecurity, and deteriorating relations with the Central Selling Organisation, controlled by the De Beers company of South Africa. In 1986, diamond mining was turned over to foreign enterprises under production-sharing agreements, and two years later the Angolans began negotiations with De Beers over diamond sales and technical assistance for the exploitation of kimberlite pipes. Output expanded again, and with the restoration of peace Angola is set once again to be a major player on the world diamond scene.

There are no other mining operations of any significance, although iron ore from the southwest was Angola’s fourth most valuable preindependence export. But the Cassinga iron mines were heavily subsidized by the Portuguese, and their profitability was open to doubt. Production declined and ceased between 1975 and 1984, and the quality of the ore reserves is probably too poor to warrant the reactivation of the mines. Copper, manganese, gold, marble, black granite, and quartz have been mined or quarried on a small scale and there are plans to exploit phosphate deposits in Cabinda and Zaïre provinces.

Industry, construction, and utilities

Manufacturing, construction, and the hydroelectric industry were expanding rapidly prior to independence, but they were severely disrupted in the chaos that followed. Nationalization and the loss of skilled labour hit manufacturing especially hard, and UNITA guerrillas proved particularly effective at sabotaging electricity and water supplies. Huge debts accrued to the state, and factories operate on average at less than 30 percent of their capacity. Workers are paid partly in the goods produced by the factory (in spite of numerous official attempts to prevent this practice), absenteeism is rife, and productivity is abysmally low. Apart from some minor processing of primary exports, manufacturing is essentially import-substituting in nature and is concentrated in food, tobacco, cotton textiles, electrical goods, metals, vehicle assembly, oil refining, sawmills, cement, and construction for the oil industry, is responsible for approving diamond concessions, and it also licenses buyers. In 1992–94 most Angolan diamonds on the market were mined and smuggled from regions controlled by UNITA. The Angolan government gained control of this area in mid-1994 and tried to halt the activities of thousands of illegal diamond prospectors. UNITA retook some diamond regions in the mid- to late 1990s and controlled them until early 2002, when UNITA’s leader, Jonas Savimbi, was killed.


Angola’s hydroelectric potential is one of the largest in Africa. Most electricity comes from dams on the KwanzaCuanza, KuneneCunene, Catumbela (Katumbela), and Dande rivers, at points where they breach the escarpment to reach the coastal plain. A Nonetheless, a large share of the country’s installed generating capacity of more than 600 megawatts is total generating facilities remained out of use . Most of the nationalized manufacturing industries, construction businesses, and public utilities are being returned to the private sector, in some cases to their former owners.


Banks were nationalized after independence. The National Bank of Angola (Banco Nacional de Angola) acts as central bank, bank of issue, and commercial bank, while the People’s Bank of Angola (Banco Popular de Angola) acts as deposit bank. Foreign banks began to reenter the country in 1985, but banking remains overwhelmingly in the hands of the stateinto the early part of the 21st century because of attacks by UNITA, although repair, renovation, and new construction of such facilities began after the civil war ended in 2002.






Oil accounts for more than 90 percent Hydrocarbons account for the largest proportion of exports; about two-thirds more than half goes to the United States and China, where the low-sulfur content of the crude oil is appreciated sought by refineries. The economy is thus highly vulnerable to shifts in the price of oil. After independence there was an attempt to obtain a growing proportion of imports from the communist bloc, and even to join Comecon. Huge quantities of arms were obtained, but otherwise this strategy met with little success. Civilian imports come mainly from Portugal, France, Brazil, A small quantity of diamonds are also exported. Imports come mainly from South Korea, Portugal, and the United States. In addition to machinery, vehicles, and pharmaceuticals, Angola imports large amounts of food and raw materials, nearly all of which could easily and cheaply be produced locally. Even raw cotton is imported. While Angola’s trade in commodities has remained in the black, the balance of payments has generally been in deficit, leading to the accumulation of arrears and the growth of the foreign debt. The return of peace should bring down imports of weapons and food, while the devaluation of the highly overvalued currency should boost exports.





Labour and taxation


Transportation and telecommunications

Angola achieved independence with an excellent transport network for an African country so large and thinly populated, in part because of Portuguese military imperatives after 1961. This But this sector of the economy infrastructure has suffered more than any other from the effects of war and the lack of maintenance, and a . A rehabilitation plan, backed by foreign aid, was launched in 1988.the last decade of the 20th century. Since the end of the civil war in 2002, other rehabilitation and reconstruction plans have also been initiated to improve the country’s transportation infrastructure.


A grid of


roads links the major geographic centres of economic activity

; in the late 1980s there were about 23,000 miles of paved road. They run into Congo (Kinshasa) and Namibia and come close to the Zambian frontier. The complete road network totaled more than 46,000 miles in 1973. During the civil war,


almost impossible except in convoy with an armed escort, and numerous bridges were destroyed. Bus service between towns has ceased, and public transport within towns has almost ground to a halt. Taxis are rare.




, and is owned in part by Tanks Consolidated Investments, a subsidiary of the Société Générale de Belgique. It provides the shortest route to the sea for the Congolese copper mines


depends, but it has not functioned to the


since the civil war began







depended on coffee and cotton for its traffic

, while the

. The Namibe Railway, which


has been owned by the state from the outset,



. The short private Amboim Railway in Kwanza Sul has been out of action since the collapse of the plantations it served.





it has been poorly managed

, long delays are experienced, and it handles


have stopped


In contrast,





Cuanza River for about 140 miles

. The merchant navy consists of several cargo vessels, unadapted to container traffic, which are run by a parastatal company. Most cargo is carried on foreign ships.

(225 km).

Air travel

Travel by air



number of passengers carried has more than quadrupled since 1975. The

national airline


(Linhas Aéreas de Angola; TAAG)

, has a fleet of 20 aircraft. Foreign airlines land only in Luanda.
Administration and social conditions
GovernmentColonial rule was exercised by a right-wing dictatorship in Portugal from 1926, and the transfer of power at independence took place without any form of election. The Popular Liberation Movement




Government and society
Constitutional framework

Portugal granted independence to Angola on Nov. 11, 1975, without establishing a new government. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola; MPLA) seized power in the main cities by force of arms, and the constitution of Nov. 11, 1975, as amended in October 1976, , led by Agostinho Neto and based in Luanda, took power, an act that was internationally, though not universally, recognized. The constitution of 1975 established a one-party state modeled on those of eastern Europe. The MPLA officially became headed by a president who was also chairman of the MPLA, which declared itself a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party in 1977 and moved into close dependence on the Soviet Union and Cuba. The latter provided troops to combat a guerrilla challenge mounted by the . The positions of prime minister and deputy prime minister were abolished in 1978, with a prime minister not appointed again until 1991; a National People’s Assembly was created in 1980. President Neto died in Moscow in 1979 and was replaced by the minister of planning, José Eduardo dos Santos. Early in 1990 the government proposed separating the offices of chairman of the party and president of state, a division already mandated by the constitution.

A new constitution, essentially an extensively amended version of the 1975 document, was promulgated in 1992. Prepared with the acquiescence of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola; UNITA). Faced with an endless war and the collapse of most of the economy, in 1985 the MPLA initiated a timid process of economic reform and began to turn more to the West. Cuban troops began to withdraw in 1989, following South African acceptance of Namibian independence in December 1988, and in 1990 the MPLA abandoned Marxism-Leninism. The civil war ended in 1991 with an agreement to introduce a new constitution. The political system is now based on the principles of the guarantee of full human rights and multiparty elections for the presidency and for parliament. However, in order to prevent the emergence of ethnically based parties, all political parties must prove that they have support in a majority of the country’s 18 provinces before they can compete in elections.


After decades of neglect, the Portuguese began a crash program of education in 1961, resulting in a literacy rate of between 10 and 15 percent at independence. The MPLA aimed to achieve primary education for all after independence and , it provides for a multiparty system. Under the terms of the constitution, the president, elected for a five-year term, is the head of state and government. The prime minister is appointed by the president, as are the members of the Council of Ministers. Legislative power is vested in the National Assembly, whose members are elected to four-year terms. The new constitution abolished the death penalty and emphasized the rights of the people.

Local government and justice



Political process





Health and welfare







Portuguese colonial policy did not favour education for the ordinary African citizens of Angola. Until 1961, when a revised education program was enacted by the colonial administration, most education was left to religious institutions—with the Roman Catholic Church focusing on the Portuguese settlers and a small number of Africans, while Protestants were most active among the African population. After independence, the MPLA’s policy of primary education for all tripled primary school enrollment between 1976 and 1979. However, although this was followed by a halving of primary school enrollment declined by half during the 1980s. Conditions Owing to the many years of civil war, conditions in schools declined dramatically, with an acute shortage of teachers and a lack of even the most basic teaching materials, including books. Enrollment . However, enrollment in secondary schools and in the university, which was founded in 1962, Agostinho Neto University (1963) expanded continuously after 1975, as these . These institutions suffered less than primary schools from political insecurity and conflict. But there was also a severe lack of teachers and teaching materials at these schools, and most faculties in the university have been were closed for long periods because of alleged political agitation. It During this time, it is estimated that recruitment into the armed forces of the MPLA and UNITA has had a greater impact than the formal educational sector Angola’s school system on the spread of literacy, the increased use of Portuguese, and the acquisition of technical skills. Many Angolans have also been trained abroad, especially in Cuba and the Soviet Union.

Health and welfare

As with education, the Portuguese made a major effort to “win hearts and minds” after 1961 by expanding health and welfare programs. The MPLA government came to power with even more ambitious schemes, but initial successes were followed by an almost complete collapse of services, especially in the rural areas. Doctors and other medical personnel have been particularly prone to flee abroad, and they are reluctant to work in remote and dangerous parts of the country. Medicines are in short supply. Malaria and severe malnutrition are rife, and cholera epidemics are a frequent occurrence. Infant mortality rates are among the highest in the world. Urban housing schemes have been submerged by the flood of refugees from the countryside. Social conditions and the health situation in Luanda’s slums have been worsened by acute shortages of water. Unemployment, inflation, empty shops, and the collapse of public transport have hit the slum dwellers hard, while the political and bureaucratic elite have benefited from a network of special shops, good housing, and other advantages financed from the proceeds of the oil economy.

Cultural lifeAngolan culture is fragmented into a myriad of highly localized clusters, but its origins lie within a broad central African Bantu tradition, shared with neighbouring countries. Angolan peoples generally trace their descent through their mothers, and lineages or extended families are important in social life. People often give some allegiance to precolonial kings and chiefs, even though their political functions have long been in abeyance and they may be situated on the other side of a modern political frontier. There are also strong vestiges of a widespread precolonial system of slavery, which the colonial authorities were slow to abolish. Polygamy, the veneration of ancestors, and combating witchcraft are practiced, even by many converts to Christianity.




Cultural life
Cultural milieu

Precolonial culture in Angola was broadly similar from one end of the country to another, albeit with local variations and some differences stemming from the many, though mostly related, languages spoken in the area. A common traditional culture is still noticeable in Angola.

Portuguese contact beginning in the late 15th century produced an overlay of European culture that was accepted to varying degrees in much of the northwestern part of the country. The Portuguese settled at Luanda in 1575 and established the core of colonial Angola in the area approximately 90 miles (150 km) inland from Luanda. By the mid-17th century a mixture of Mbundu and Portuguese culture had emerged in the region, and in 18th-century Luanda, Kimbundu (the language of the Mbundu) predominated as the language of the elite; even Portuguese of considerable stature who resided locally spoke Kimbundu, often in preference to Portuguese. In the 19th century the Luanda elite embraced both Kimbundu and Portuguese culture and language and valued their blended nature, and the eventual cessation of Kimbundu as the language of the elite did not occur until after 1910. In contrast, a class of mixed origin (including government officials, the assimilated African and mulatto population, and, later, the settlers that moved to the country after 1945) that was strongly Portuguese in language and cultural expression developed after 1850 with the Portuguese conquest of the rest of Angola and with the programs of assimilation that were begun in 1910 and intensified after 1926. This predominantly Portuguese culture coexisted with a less-assimilated rural population that harkened back to the mixed culture of earlier times (especially in the Kongo areas) or to the traditional cultures (in those regions brought under Portuguese control after 1850). Protestant missionaries introduced North American and British influences; they were anxious to promote significant cultural change—including the introduction of many Western norms under the guise of modernization—as well as religious conversion, although they preferred to teach in indigenous languages.

After independence the propaganda of the emerging nationalist movements placed a greater value on the purely African culture, but, because of the colonial policy of assimilation, most educated Angolans were more Portuguese than African in their general cultural orientation. This created considerable cultural conflict and had political implications as well, because those who were assimilated were generally the educational and political leaders. Although rigorous censorship ceased in the 1990s, both the cultural ambiguity of many in the government and the desire to discourage the “tribalism” that endured initially made Angola, in spite of official positions, less supportive of cultural expressions that were not Portuguese based. However, this began to change in the first decade of the 21st century, as the government appeared to be somewhat more accommodating.

Daily life

The mixture of Portuguese and African culture has made urban Angola, especially the Luanda region, more like a Latin American than an African country. Its nightclubs, restaurants, and annual Carnival might seem at home in Brazil had not war and security measures made this sort of social life difficult. Nevertheless, the country has much to celebrate in its cuisine, festivals, and artistic traditions.

As in much of sub-Saharan Africa, palm oil is an indispensable part of many Angolan dishes, and a number of dishes emphasize the Angolan population’s love of seafood. The feast of Nganja, usually celebrated in April, is a harvest festival during which children roast corn. The Futungo market, near Luanda, provides craftsmen with a place to sell their handicrafts.

The arts

Wood, clay, copper, reeds, ivory, shells, and the human body are the main media for


Angolan decorative arts. The wooden sculptures of the Chokwe people, the carved ivories of Cabinda, and the elaborate

hair styles

hairstyles of the Nyaneka and Nkhumbi peoples are especially famous. A number of modern artists and graphic designers work with both African and Western motifs in the general realm of modern African art. Music and dancing play a central role in cultural life, with


the drum as the basic instrument

, and

; there is also a rich oral literature.

There have been attempts to preserve this cultural heritage, which remains largely outside the domain of formal cultural institutions, but political instability and corruption after 1975 led to tragic losses of ethnographic collections.Traditional culture has been increasingly overlaid by

Since independence various government research agencies have tried to collect ethnographic material and to do archaeological studies, but their work has been sporadic and limited by the war.

Western influences, which tend to predominate in the towns

. The 19th century saw the emergence of

, have increasingly overshadowed traditional culture. During the 19th century, a dynamic group of educated


Africans emerged in Angolan towns

, similar in some respects to those of Sierra Leone, who

. These individuals wrote newspaper articles,

history books

histories, novels, and poems in Portuguese and also explored Mbundu folklore and ethnography. The right-wing dictatorship in Portugal drove much of this literary activity underground after 1926 but failed to destroy it altogether.


Although the leader of the MPLA at independence, Agostinho Neto


, was

famous for his poetry

renowned throughout the Portuguese-speaking world

. The MPLA government exercised

for his poetry, his government too curtailed artistic freedom, implementing a rigorous system of censorship

, and the output of the officially sponsored Union of Angolan Authors since 1975 has been disappointing. This was to some extent offset by the emergence

. Additional artistic outlets emerged by the mid-1990s with the rise of a national television service and the beginnings of a national film industry.

Angola has many traditional instruments, including the ngoma, a bongo drum, and the mpwita, a drum originally found in Kongo. Also noteworthy are the mpungu, a trumpet, and the Luandan hungu, equivalent to the mbulumbumba of southwestern Angola, both types of gourd-resonated musical bow. These stringed instruments traveled with slaves to Brazil, where they developed into the berimbau.

Contemporary music in Angola combines the African influences in the music of the Caribbean, the United States, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo with the Latin influences of Cuba and Brazil. Angola’s poverty and civil unrest have provided few opportunities for professional musicians, especially because the Ministry of Culture has exerted much control over commercial music production since independence; despite this, musical expression has flourished in informal sectors.

Cultural institutions

An ambitious program to expand museums, libraries, and archives


, initiated in the postindependence era, has borne little fruit.

Indeed, many

A National Institute for Cultural Heritage does exist in Luanda, but material from other local museums was either looted or removed to Luanda during the course of the war. The National Historical Archive, also in Luanda, houses material dating to the 17th century. The Kongo Kingdom Museum in M’banza Congo is home to many cultural artifacts. Many other fine collections built up in colonial times were destroyed, dispersed, or made unavailable to the public. Following the end of the civil war in 2002, the government and private organizations began the process of renovating or rebuilding cultural institutions damaged in the war.

Sports and recreation

Sports are


largely dominated by football (soccer), which is a national passion and is played by people of every social stratum. Some Angolans have become


players of distinction, but they tend to


compete professionally in

the clubs of Portugal and other European countries

Portugal or elsewhere in Europe, where


there are more

Overviews are provided by

opportunities. In 2006 Angola was one of four sub-Saharan African countries that participated in the World Cup finals. Basketball is growing in popularity in Angola, especially owing to the influence of foreign armed forces fighting on Angolan soil. The sport is played by people of all ages and both sexes, and, because of government support, the men’s national team has done well at African championships and participated in the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Media and publishing

The press was nationalized in 1976; several newspapers and periodicals are published, mainly in Luanda. The state-run radio station broadcasts in Portuguese, English, French, Spanish, Chokwe, Kikongo, Kimbundu, and Umbundu, as well as a few other African languages. The television station, founded in 1975, is also state-controlled. Although the constitution provides for freedom of the press, it is not always enforced, and some journalists have practiced self-censorship.


Overviews are provided by Adebayo Oyebade, Culture and Customs of Angola (2007); Douglas L. Wheeler and René Pélissier, Angola (1971); and Thomas Collelo (ed.), Angola

, a

: A Country Study, 3rd ed. (1991).

Manfred Kuder, Angola: eine geographische, soziale, und wirtschaftliche Landeskunde (1971), is the standard geographic text.

Lawrence W. Henderson,

A Igreja em

The Church in Angola (1992; originally published in Portuguese, 1990), surveys


Christian groups in Angola. The best up-to-date information on politics and the economy is provided by two publications from the Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Profile: Angola

, São Tomé & Príncipe

(annual), and Country Report: Angola

, São Tomé & Príncipe (quarterly). Angola, an Introductory Economic Review (1991), a World Bank publication, is also useful

(quarterly). Tony Hodges, Angola: Anatomy of an Oil State (2004), provides a useful overview of the role petroleum has played in the country’s economy.


David Birmingham, Empire in Africa: Angola and Its Neighbors (2006); and Lawrence W. Henderson, Angola: Five Centuries of Conflict (1979), provide broad treatment. W. Martin James, Historical Dictionary of Angola, new ed. (2004), includes a useful bibliography. David Birmingham, Central Africa to 1870: Zambezia, Zaïre, and the South Atlantic (1981), synthesizes prehistory and the early Portuguese presence. More on the Portuguese presence can be found in Gerald J. Bender, Angola Under the Portuguese: The Myth and the Reality (1978). Analyses of the slave trade include Joseph C. Miller, Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830 (1988), a masterful work; and W.G. Clarence-Smith, Slaves, Peasants, and Capitalists in Southern Angola, 1840–1926 (1979). Linda Heywood, Contested Power in Angola, 1840s to the Present (2000), focuses on the history of central Angola. John A. Marcum, The Angolan Revolution, 2 vol. (1969–78), analyzes the liberation movements up to independence. David Birmingham, Frontline Nationalism in Angola & Mozambique (1992), discusses the period from 1961 to 1975. F.W. Heimer, The Decolonization Conflict in Angola, 1974–76: An Essay in Political Sociology (1979), provides the best guide to decolonization. W.G. Clarence-Smith, “Class Structure and Class Struggles in Angola in the 1970s,” Journal of Southern African Studies, 7(1):109–126 (October 1980), analyzes the beginnings of the civil war. Fred Bridgland, Jonas Savimbi: A Key to Africa (1986), views the civil war from a UNITA perspective; while Keith Somerville, Angola: Politics, Economics, and Society (1986), does the same from an MPLA perspective. William Minter, Apartheid’s Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola and Mozambique (1994), also discusses the civil wars.