Settlement patterns
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The country’s four main cultural regions developed from contact and exchange between neighbouring clusters of peoples. The southern region between Brazzaville and the coast is inhabited by the Kongo peoples. Also in the south, the Teke inhabit the Batéké Plateau region. In the north, the Ubangi peoples live in the Congo River basin to the west of Mossaka, while the Binga Pygmies and the Sanga are scattered through the northern basin. Precolonial trade between north and south stimulated both cooperation and competition, while French favouritism toward the peoples of the southwest and postindependence politics intensified ethnic and regional rivalries. Massive internal migration and urbanization since independence have reproduced these cleavages in the cities and towns.
Population distribution within the country is very uneven. The southwestern quarter of the country is home to the majority of the population, while in the north and northeast, population is sparse. In spite of the civil conflict of the late 1990s, which dampened the rate of urbanization, Congo nevertheless remains highly urbanized relative to the sub-Saharan African average, with more than one-half of the population living in cities. Because the urban growth rate far exceeds that of the country as a whole, urbanization continues to intensify. Since this growth has been chiefly the result of internal migration, most rural communities have ties to the larger national community and economy.
The major cities are Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire on the Atlantic coast, Nkayi (formerly Jacob) in the Niari valley, and Loubomo (formerly Dolisie) in the Mayombé region. Colonial creations by and large, the cities reflect French influence: a central administrative and commercial core is surrounded by residential areas. Before independence there was a marked separation between the spacious planned European neighbourhoods and the less-regimented, more populous African parts of town. Since 1960, however, greater social and economic mobility in the African population, attempts at urban renewal, and massive rural-to-urban migration have blurred these distinctions.
Demographic trends
Like many African countries, Congo has a fast-growing, relatively young population: the birth rate is among the world’s highest, and about two-fifths of the population is under 15 years of age. In the early portions of the 20th century, however, the country was part of the low-fertility belt, a region stretching from Gabon to Uganda where many societies experienced little or no population growth. Life expectancy, among the lowest on the continent prior to 1950, improved steadily in the last half of the 20th century, and by the early 2000s it had surpassed the average for sub-Saharan Africa.
Urban in-migration has long been an important demographic trend. During the colonial era, the new colonial cities, and Brazzaville in particular, attracted African migrants. Congo has since become one of the most urban countries of sub-Saharan Africa, about two-thirds of the population residing in urban areas. Demographic trends have also been linked to local and neighbouring patterns of conflict. More than one-third of the population was estimated to have been displaced as a result of the civil conflict of the late 1990s; many returned to their homes in 2000. In addition, refugees fleeing conflict in neighbouring countries—particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo but also Rwanda, Angola, and elsewhere—have sought shelter in Congo.
Economy
Petroleum and mining are the major export industries, followed by forestry and commercial agriculture. Light manufacturing (mostly shoes), sugar processing, and assembly industries assumed greater importance in the 1980s. These activities, however, employed only a small fraction of the labour force, most of which worked in agriculture and the nonsalaried informal urban economy.
In the late 1980s, following a fall in world oil prices, Congo experienced a major financial crisis. Negotiations for aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank produced agreements to privatize portions of the national economy and to reduce the national bureaucracy. Such agreements may have improved the ability of Congo to compete in the international economy; at the same time, they did little to ameliorate the poverty of much of the population.
Congo continued to remain a heavily indebted country. Failure to make payments on outstanding debts prompted the suspension of disbursements by the World Bank in the late 1990s, shortly before the halt of all international aid with the outbreak of civil conflict. In 2000 the IMF approved emergency assistance, and the World Bank resumed its activities in 2001; in November 2007 the London Club of creditors canceled some four-fifths of Congo’s debt.
