Africa A to Z: Continental and Country Profiles: Third Edition

Central African Republic (CAR)

COUNTRY PROFILES A-Z Africa Institute of South Africa | Africa A-Z: Continental and Country Profiles 129 Orientation This large landlocked country lies almost exactly in the middle of the African continent. It is one of the remotest places in Africa, being far from the sea and regular transport routes. Much of the Central African Republic (CAR) is gently undulating plateau, forming a watershed between rivers flowing southward into the great Congo Basin or northward to Lake Chad. In the northeast, near the border with Sudan, the Bongo Mountains rise to 1400 m; Cameroon’s Adamawa Mountains extend into the country’s northwestern corner. In the rainy season (July-November) much of the southeast is impassable, owing to the flooding of rivers running to the Ubangi River, forming the CAR’s southern border. The Ubangi’s banks are overgrown with gallery forests that are exploited for timber. Further north rainfall decreases with the forests giving way to woodland savanna in the middle of the country and, in the far north, to dry savanna. Vast areas in the north and east have been set aside for wildlife conservation but poaching of the game has become a major threat to these sanctuaries . The busy river port of Bangui on the Ubangi River – the CAR’s southern border – is also the national capital and the largest city in the country. River vessels travel between Bangui and the cities of Kinshasa and Brazzaville on the lower Congo River whence freight can be taken by rail to the Atlantic Ocean ports of Matadi and Pointe Noire; this route of some 1 500 km is the CAR’s principal outlet to the sea. However, the road through neighbouring Cameroon to the port of Douala is being upgraded to provide an alternative and shorter importexport route for the CAR. People With less than four million people living on slightly more than 600 000 square kilometres, the CAR is a sparsely populated country (6 persons per km2 ). The rate of population growth is below the African average and is projected to fall in the coming years. The population is concentrated in the western and southern parts of the country; the eastern and northern areas are almost uninhabited. About 40% of the people live in towns and cities, though Bangui with around one million people is the only city of consequence. The CAR is inhabited by a large number of ethnic groups, speaking languages belonging to the Ubangi linguistic family. The two largest groups are the Gbaya, living in the western part of the country, and the Banda of the central savanna areas. Zande groups in the southeast form part of the Central African Republic (CAR) COUNTRY PROFILES A-Z 130 Africa A-Z: Continental and Country Profiles | Africa Institute of South Africa Zande cluster of peoples in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. Along the Ubangi River are various small groups, including the Yakoma, around Bangui, and the Sango whose Sango language has become a lingua franca; Sango has the status of a national language besides French, the official language. Non-Ubangi peoples, related to the Sara and Maba in southern Chad, predominate in the northern border areas. More than half the population is Christian, divided roughly equally into Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, though many Central Africans still adhere to the traditional ethnic religious beliefs; there is a small Muslim minority living mainly in the northern border area. Economy Political instability and bad governance have prevented the country from developing its potential and easing the abject poverty of the population. Well over half of GDP comes from agriculture, forestry and the mining sector. Coffee and cotton are the main cash crops and, although only 3% of the land is arable, the country is generally self-sufficient in the growing of food crops such as cassava, maize, millet, sesame and rice. Livestock farming is constrained by the presence of the tsetse fly and the problems of marketing. Timber from the extensive natural forests in the south and diamonds, extracted from alluvial diggings in the western and central parts of the country, are the two main export commodities; the gemstones are generally of a high quality but much state revenue is lost through diamond smuggling. Gold is mined on a small scale and there are large uranium deposits in the southeast which are not exploited because of weak international demand for this mineral. Petroleum has been discovered in northern CAR. Manufacturing is very limited, concentrating on...