Angola
Atlantic oil power on the edge of the Kalahari
Angola stretches from a humid Atlantic coastline up onto a high interior plateau, a country whose fortunes have ridden the price of crude oil and the deep-blue glint of offshore diamonds. Twice the size of Texas, it ranks among sub-Saharan Africa's largest petroleum producers, with Luanda long counted as one of the most expensive cities on earth for foreign workers. Yet beyond the oil rigs lies a land of rust-red soil, baobab country, and the headwaters of rivers that feed the Okavango Delta far to the south. Portuguese is the binding language across dozens of Bantu tongues.
The terrain climbs from a narrow coastal lowland to the Bie Plateau, where the central highlands crest at Morro de Moco, the country's highest point at 2,619 meters. Rivers radiate outward: the Kwanza cuts through the heart of the country, while the Cubango and Cuito drain southeast toward Botswana, sustaining one of the planet's great wetlands. The north is wet and forested, grading into the arid scrub of the Namib fringe in the south. Diamonds come from the Lunda provinces in the northeast, and the offshore basins off Cabinda and the Congo mouth hold the petroleum that anchors the economy.
Settled by Bantu peoples and ruled in part by the powerful Kingdom of Kongo, the region became a hub of the Portuguese slave trade for centuries before formal colonization. Independence in 1975 plunged Angola into a Cold War-era civil war that lasted until 2002, drawing in Cuban troops and South African forces. The peace that followed unleashed an oil-fueled construction boom and a long stretch of single-party rule under the MPLA. Today Angola works to diversify beyond crude, courting agriculture and reopening the Benguela railway that links the interior copper belt to the Atlantic.