🇦🇴 Angola

After the Bantu expansion reached the region, discrete political entities formed and grouped into confederations. These provided the political framework from which the major kingdoms of the region emerged.

Kongo rose to dominate the other kingdoms of the region, extending northward into what are now the DRC, Republic of the Congo and Gabon. It was highly centralised around its monarch, controlled neighbouring states as vassals and traded in copper, ivory, salt and hides along the southwestern African coast.

The Portuguese explorer's voyage marked the first recorded European contact with the region's coast. It began a relationship between Portugal and the Kongo Kingdom that shaped the territory's subsequent colonial history.

Following the development of a successful sugar-growing colony on Portuguese-settled São Tomé, Kongo's previously internal slave market turned outward. King Afonso's correspondence documents the purchase and sale of slaves, and the trade increasingly became Kongo's primary economic sector.

A sequence of treaties and military campaigns brought the Angolan littoral under Portuguese authority, though control of the vast interior remained minimal. Life for European colonists was difficult and progress slow, with famines every seventy years on average killing a third to a half of local populations.

Afonso extended Kongo's borders south and east, and combined with earlier religious reforms this let him concentrate power in his capital. He established a royal monopoly on some trade and, with several Portuguese kings, a joint monopoly on the external slave trade.

The Portuguese colonial designation 'Kingdom of Angola' appeared as early as this charter. The name would eventually become that of the modern nation.

Paulo Dias de Novais founded the settlement of São Paulo de Loanda (São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda) in 1575 with a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. It became the principal Portuguese settlement and a major hub of the Atlantic slave trade, developed a mixed urban culture from its foundation, and later became Angola's capital.

Benguela was fortified in 1587 and became a township in 1617. It served as a second base from which colonial outposts expanded inland, though inroads remained very limited until the late 19th century.

Nzinga fought and negotiated with Portuguese forces for nearly four decades, later ruling the neighbouring kingdom of Matamba until her death in 1663. She remains one of Angola's most celebrated historical figures.

The Dutch seized the principal Portuguese settlement and used alliances with local peoples to attack Portuguese holdings elsewhere. Kongo's Garcia II relied on Dutch military assistance to drive the Portuguese from Luanda despite Portugal being Kongo's chief slave-trading partner.

A Portuguese fleet under Salvador de Sá recaptured Luanda, and the reconquest of the remaining territory was completed by 1650. Portuguese authority on the coast was restored.

Treaties with Kongo in 1649 were followed in 1656 by agreements with Njinga's Kingdom of Matamba and with Ndongo. These settlements consolidated Portuguese standing after the expulsion of the Dutch.

The Kongolese king was killed together with a substantial proportion of the aristocracy, and colonial power expanded. Widespread war followed his death, disrupting access to iron ore and charcoal for the arms industry and leaving almost every Kongolese citizen at risk of enslavement.

This was the last major Portuguese expansion inland from Luanda. Attempts to invade Kongo in 1670 and Matamba in 1681 both failed, halting further advance for nearly two centuries.

By the middle of the century Portuguese authority reached from the Congo River in the north to Mossâmedes in the south. Proposals to link Angola with Mozambique were entertained until the late 1880s but were blocked by British and Belgian opposition, and Portuguese forces met armed resistance from various Angolan peoples.

Local dealers supplied large numbers of Angolan slaves for plantations, usually in exchange for European manufactured goods. This branch of the Atlantic trade persisted until after Brazil became independent in the 1820s.

The trade was formally banned in 1836; in 1854 the colonial government freed its existing slaves, and four years later a more progressive administration abolished slavery altogether. The decrees were largely unenforceable and Portugal depended on the British Royal Navy's Blockade of Africa, while renewed military expeditions pushed into the interior.

The conference delineated the boundaries of Portuguese claims in Angola, though many details remained unresolved until the 1920s. Protective tariffs then boosted trade between Portugal and its African territories, spurring development and a wave of new Portuguese immigrants.

Accusing the Mucubal of rebellion and cattle-thieving, Portuguese forces killed hundreds and took 3,529 prisoners, a fifth of them women and children, who were held in concentration camps. Many died of undernourishment, violence and forced labour; around 600 were sent to São Tomé and Príncipe and hundreds to a camp at Damba where 26% died.

Under Portuguese colonial law black Angolans could not form political parties or unions, so organised nationalism only took root after the war. It was spearheaded by a largely Westernised, Portuguese-speaking urban class including many mestiços, joined in the early 1960s by rural labour activism.

Exploration in the Cabinda enclave from 1954 led to major offshore discoveries in subsequent decades, and oil became Angola's dominant export, accounting for the large majority of government revenue and foreign earnings.

Attacks on a Luanda prison and colonial plantations in February 1961 marked the start of the Angolan War of Independence, fought by the MPLA, FNLA and later UNITA against Portugal until 1974.

The MPLA tried to move its headquarters from Conakry and proposed unity with the UPA under Holden Roberto, who refused. When the MPLA later inserted its own insurgents into Angola they were ambushed and annihilated by UPA partisans, setting the precedent for the factional strife that ignited the civil war.

The largely Ovimbundu-dominated guerrilla movement was formed to fight the Portuguese Empire. It was handicapped by remoteness from friendly borders, Ovimbundu ethnic fragmentation and the isolation of peasants on European plantations.

Most of the oil along the Cabinda coast was found under Portuguese rule by CABGOC from 1968 onwards. These fields became the foundation of the petroleum industry that would dominate Angola's revenues and exports.

The internationally co-produced film premiered at the Carthage Film Festival to critical acclaim and won the Tanit d'Or, the festival's highest prize. It stands as one of Angola's first feature films.

The revolution ended Portuguese military activity in Africa and led to a ceasefire pending independence negotiations. All three Angolan factions used the gradual Portuguese withdrawal to seize strategic positions and enlarge their forces.

Fighting between the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), led by Jose Eduardo dos Santos, and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), led by Jonas Savimbi, followed independence. Up to 1.5 million lives may have been lost and 4 million people displaced during more than a quarter century of fighting.

After the Soviets declined to send ground forces in August, Cuba dispatched nearly five hundred combat personnel in late September with sophisticated weaponry, rising to over a thousand by independence and supplied by a Soviet airbridge. The buildup let the MPLA drive rivals from Luanda and blunt Zairean and South African intervention, largely annihilating the FNLA at the Battle of Quifangondo.

The MPLA built a Marxist–Leninist one-party state with central planning, abolishing the domestic private sector and folding private firms into state-owned Unidades Economicas Estatais. Angola saw significant modern industrialisation, but corruption grew and public resources were misallocated or embezzled.

Encouraged by the Organisation of African Unity, the three leaders met in Mombasa and agreed to form a coalition government, ratified later that month at Alvor. The accord called for general elections and set independence for 11 November 1975, but collapsed amid renewed fighting.

The FNLA attacked the MPLA's political headquarters in March, with street clashes intensifying in April and May. UNITA entered the fighting after more than two hundred of its members were massacred by an MPLA contingent in June, and rising Soviet arms shipments prompted the CIA to provide substantial covert aid to the FNLA and UNITA.

Independence took effect on 11 November 1975, with the MPLA's Agostinho Neto becoming president. Fighting between the MPLA, UNITA and the FNLA escalated into a civil war that drew in Cuban, Soviet, South African and American support and lasted for decades.

The Maoist-oriented OCA's coup attempt was suppressed through a series of bloody political purges. Thousands of OCA supporters were killed, entrenching MPLA control.

The prolonged battle in southern Angola, among the largest in Africa since the Second World War, ended inconclusively but led to the New York Accords that December, under which Cuban troops withdrew and South Africa agreed to Namibian independence.

The party dropped its former ideology, after which Angola joined the International Monetary Fund and reduced restrictions on the market economy to attract foreign investment. This reoriented the country's economic and diplomatic alignment after the Cold War.

The peace agreement scheduled general elections for September 1992. It briefly halted the civil war and opened the way to multiparty competition.

After the MPLA's major electoral victory in Angola's first multi-party elections of September 1992, UNITA's Jonas Savimbi rejected both the presidential and legislative counts and fighting resumed within weeks. From 30 October to 1 November MPLA forces killed thousands of UNITA supporters in the Halloween massacre, among them senior UNITA officials in Luanda.

George Soros's foundation began work with Rafael Marques de Morais as its first national representative until 2004. Initial collaboration on primary school education soured over OSF's democratisation and human rights campaigning.

The collapse on 24 May 2026 buried workers at the unlicensed site, and four people were rescued. Illegal mining accidents have recurred periodically in Angola's diamond and gold-producing regions.

The visit, from 18 to 21 April 2026, included a large open-air Mass at which the pope urged Angolans to build hope. It was among the new pontiff's early foreign trips.

Lourenço's term ended on 14 February 2026 at the bloc's 39th summit in Addis Ababa, where members elected his successor and prioritised water security among the union's themes for the coming year.

Serafim Shyngo-Ya-Hombo, who died on 1 January 2026, had served as auxiliary bishop of Luanda and later as bishop of Mbanza Congo from 1992 to 2008. He was remembered for his humility and pastoral work.

President Trump's proclamation of 16 December 2025 added Angola to a list of 39 countries facing new or tightened US travel restrictions, part of a wider crackdown on visa overstays and irregular migration.

Dos Santos, who led the government from 2002 to 2008 and later served as vice-president, died on 18 December 2025. He had twice served as president of the National Assembly during a long career in the ruling MPLA.

China agreed in November 2025 to invest 1.4 billion US dollars modernising the Tanzania-Zambia line, a competing route for Central African copper and cobalt exports. The rivalry underscored competition between Western and Chinese-backed infrastructure in the region.

The partnership, set out at a Global Gateway Forum event on 9 October 2025, backed the rail link from the Angolan port of Lobito to copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, part of a wider Western effort to compete with Chinese-backed infrastructure in the region.

The nomination, reported in September 2025, recognised Lourenço's role mediating the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and negotiating the exile of Gabon's ousted president Ali Bongo. Lourenço had served as African Union chairperson since February 2025.

The designation on 27 September 2025 recognised the park, one of Angola's oldest protected areas, as part of a global network intended to balance conservation with sustainable development.

The 2024 census counted 36,604,681 inhabitants and found Portuguese spoken natively by 45.5%, followed by Umbundu at 17.1% and Kimbundu at 10.8%. An earlier 2014 census had found 71.15% of Angolans using Portuguese at home.

The exit, effective January 2024, ended 16 years of membership after a dispute over the crude-oil production quota assigned to the country. Angola had produced an average of 1.165 million barrels per day in 2022.

A small FAA contingent was already stationed in Kinshasa, and 500 more personnel were sent in March 2023. Total manpower stood at 107,000 with 10,000 paramilitaries as of 2015 estimates.

Angola emitted 174.71 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2023, about 0.32% of the world total and 46th highest globally. Its Nationally Determined Contribution promises a 14% reduction by 2025 with a further 10% conditional on international support, against a backdrop of a 1.4°C temperature rise since 1951.

The ruling party retained its parliamentary majority and Lourenço secured a second five-year term. Ex-president dos Santos had died in Spain in July 2022, and Freedom House noted increases in freedoms under Lourenço while still rating the country 'not free'.

The Dubai-based operator took over the multipurpose terminal, pledging about US$190 million to upgrade equipment. Container capacity was to rise to roughly 700,000 TEU per year, and operations began later that year.

Leaked documents showed that Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey and PricewaterhouseCoopers helped Isabel dos Santos and relatives run the state oil company for personal profit. Company revenues funded vanity projects in France and Switzerland, damaging Angola's governance reputation.

The reform passed overwhelmingly, with 155 votes for, one against and seven abstentions. It also prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The three-year programme, at the time the Fund's largest arrangement in sub-Saharan Africa, supported fiscal consolidation and diversification after the 2014 collapse in oil prices. It was later augmented and concluded in 2021.

AngoSat-1 went into orbit on 26 December 2017. A replacement, AngoSat-2, was pursued after difficulties and was finally launched on 12 October 2022.

Lourenço took office on 26 September 2017 after the ruling MPLA won that year's legislative election. He later pursued anti-corruption cases against members of the dos Santos family.

The 2016 drought affected 1.4 million people across seven of Angola's eighteen provinces. Food prices rose and acute malnutrition rates doubled, affecting over 95,000 children.

The outbreak began in December 2015 and by August 2016, when it started to subside, nearly 4,000 people were suspected of being infected. As many as 369 may have died.

Following new legislation, administration of the country-code domain passed from Portugal to Angola. It marked a step in national control of digital infrastructure alongside the announced underwater optic fibre cable of October 2014.

The Capital Market in Angola was launched on 19 December 2014, with BODIVA allocated the secondary public debt market. A corporate debt market was expected in 2015 and stock trading in 2016, as Angola's financial market rose to third place in sub-Saharan Africa.

On 16 October 2014 Angola won a non-permanent seat with 190 of 193 votes, serving from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2016. It had also chaired the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region since January 2014.

The IACC was established by presidential decree to integrate the National Health Service. In the same year Angola launched a national measles vaccination campaign for children under ten across all 18 provinces under the Strategic Plan for the Elimination of Measles 2014–2020.

The code took effect in 2014 within a legal system based on Portuguese and customary law. The judiciary remained weak and fragmented, with courts operating in only 12 of more than 140 municipalities.

Legislative elections held in 2012 under the new constitution saw Jose Eduardo dos Santos installed as president, extending a tenure that began in 1979.

The country staged Africa's principal football tournament eight years after the end of the civil war. Its national team had earlier qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, its first appearance in the finals.

Media libraries were distributed across provinces to widen access to information and knowledge. The plan envisaged one media library in each province by 2017.

The 2010 constitution abolished direct presidential elections, providing instead that the leader of the largest parliamentary party becomes president, and strengthened the MPLA's hold on power.

On 25 June 2008 the court was established and its Judicial Counsellors assumed office before the President of the Republic. Its first task was validating party candidacies for the legislative elections of 5 September 2008.

With the elections of 2008 and 2012 an MPLA-ruled dominant-party system emerged, with UNITA and the FNLA as opposition. The August 2012 poll, in which the MPLA took over 70% of the vote, suffered serious flaws including inaccurate voter rolls, and turnout fell from 80% in 2008 to 60%.

The retired military judge founded the CMJSPLT in the diamond-rich province; after his release from prison in 2011 a hardline faction under José Mateus 'Zeca Mutchima' split off to form the MPPLT. The movement eventually claimed Angola's six eastern provinces, some 51.6% of national territory.

Membership followed oil production surpassing 1.4 million barrels per day in late 2005, with diamonds and oil making up 60% of the economy and nearly all exports. GDP grew 18% in 2005, 26% in 2006 and 17.6% in 2007, the world's highest average annual growth over 2001–10.

The credit was earmarked for rebuilding Angola's infrastructure and reducing IMF influence in the country. China later extended a second $2 billion Exim loan in 2007 and a $2.9 billion loan from China International Fund in 2005, making it a dominant financier.

Since 2003 more than 400,000 Congolese migrants have been removed from the country. Angola nonetheless hosted large foreign communities, including an estimated 400,000 DRC migrant workers, 220,000 Portuguese and 259,000 Chinese as of 2008.

Government troops killed UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi in a skirmish in Moxico province on 22 February 2002, ending the civil war that had been fought intermittently since 1975 and had killed an estimated 500,000 people. In April UNITA agreed the Luena Memorandum of Understanding and gave up its armed wing; the settlement allowed some 4 million displaced people to be resettled, lifted agricultural output and underpinned Angola's subsequent rapid growth.

Angola demanded compensation for oil spills allegedly caused by Chevron. It was the first time the state had fined a multinational corporation operating in its waters.