Central African Republic
A landlocked heart of the continent, rich in resources, scarred by conflict
Sitting almost exactly at the geographic center of the continent, the Central African Republic is a landlocked plateau of savanna and rainforest drained by two great river systems flowing in opposite directions. Beneath its soil lie diamonds, gold, and uranium, yet it remains among the poorest and least developed nations on earth, repeatedly destabilized by coups and armed factions. The forests of the southwest shelter lowland gorillas and forest elephants, and the Sangha River basin forms part of a UNESCO-listed wilderness shared with Cameroon and the Congo.
The country is essentially a vast undulating plateau, averaging 600 to 700 meters in elevation, that forms the watershed between the Chad and Congo basins. To the north, rivers feed the Chari toward Lake Chad, while to the south, the Ubangi - a major tributary of the Congo - traces the southern border. The highest ground rises near the Cameroon frontier at Mont Ngaoui, 1,420 meters. Climate ranges from tropical forest in the south to drier Sudanian savanna in the north, with poaching and weak infrastructure straining its remarkable but fragile wildlife reserves.
Carved out as the French colony of Ubangi-Shari, the territory gained independence in 1960 and endured the bizarre imperial pretensions of Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who crowned himself emperor in the 1970s. Since then the country has cycled through rebellions, a 2013 civil war between Seleka and anti-Balaka militias, and the heavy presence of foreign security contractors. French and the unifying Sango language bind a population spread thinly across the land. International peacekeepers remain deployed as the state struggles to extend authority beyond the capital, Bangui.