33 Facts About Gabon

Gabon, officially the Gabonese Republic, is a country on Central Africa's Atlantic coast with extensive protected parkland.

The famed Loango National Park's forested coastal terrain is home to a diverse range of wildlife, including gorillas, hippos, and whales.

Lopé National Park is mostly made up of rainforest.

The mangroves and tidal beaches of Akanda National Park are well-known.

Gabon has one of the highest urbanisation rates in Africa, with cities housing more than four out of every five Gabonese citizens.

Gabon's major languages are French, Fang, Myene, Nzebi, Bapounou/Eschira, and Bandjabi.

Gabon's capital city is Libreville.

Gabon is located on Africa's west coast, bordered by Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, and the Republic of Congo.

Archaeological evidence indicates that Gabon has been inhabited for over 400,000 years, beginning with the Palaeolithic and continuing through the Neolithic and Iron Age to the present-day Bantu and Pygmy peoples.

The name Gabon comes from the Portuguese word "gabao" meaning "cloak". Early explorers thought the Komo River estuary near Libreville was shaped like a cloak.

Gabon's first contact with Europeans occurred in 1472, with the arrival of the Portuguese. Slaves, ivory, and tropical wood were all pursued and trafficked by the British, Dutch, and French.

Libreville, the capital city, was founded in 1849 by freed slaves. Libreville, which means "free town" in French, is modelled after Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital.

Gabon's flag is horizontally striped green, yellow, and blue. The yellow represents the Equator, the green the vast forested area, and the blue the Atlantic coast.

Gabon was a French colony from 1839 until 1910, when it became part of French Equatorial Africa.

Gabon gained full independence in 1960 after becoming an autonomous republic within the French Community in 1958.

Gabon is one of 13 countries through which the Equator passes. Countries closer to the equator have traditionally struggled economically due to the drawbacks of a hot climate, which is often more unstable than more temperate-climate nations.

Gabon, on the other hand, is one of the region's more stable countries and has a "high" level of human development, despite being the lowest-ranked subcategory in the latest Human Development Index (HDI).

National parkland protects 11.25% of Gabon's territory.

Loango National Park in Gabon is known as "Africa's Last Eden" and is one of the best wildlife-watching destinations in the world, with elephants, gorillas, crocodiles, and sitatunga antelopes roaming its savannahs, lagoons, and beaches.

Gabon was described as "the land of the surfing hippos" in a 2004 National Geographic article after a photographer captured hippos playing in the ocean just off the beach in Loango National Park.

Gabon has only one UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Lopé-Okanda Ecosystem and Relict Cultural Landscape. The site is a mix of well-preserved tropical rainforest and relict savannah landscapes that are home to a diverse range of species and habitats, including endangered large mammals.

The site includes Lopé National Park, which has the world's highest concentration of elephants, with an estimated three per square kilometre.

Lopé National Park is also home to one of the world's largest mandrill troupes.

The site also contains 1,800 petroglyphs (rock carvings) as well as well-preserved Stone and Iron Age habitation around hilltops, caves, and shelters. They represent 400,000 years of nearly continuous history.

Gabon has a sizable population of gorillas, the world's largest primate.

During outbreaks in the 1990s and 2000s, the Ebola virus wiped out 90% of western lowland gorillas in Gabon and the Republic of Congo.

Gabon's second president, Omar Bongo, had led the country since 1967 and was Africa's longest-serving head of state when he died in 2009. Furthermore, at the time of his death, Bongo was the world's second-longest-serving non-royal leader after Cuba's Fidel Castro.

Gabon was first settled by Pygmies in the late Stone Age, and then by Bantu-speaking migrants in the Iron Age.

Pygmies are known for their short stature, typically standing less than 1.5m (59 inches) tall. They now make up only 0.3% of Gabon's population.

The forest covers 81% of Gabon.

Albert Schweitzer, a Frenchman, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 for his humanitarian work in Gabon. Schweitzer established a leprosy hospital in Lambaréné, then in French Equatorial Africa, in 1924. The hospital is still in use today.

Gabon is home to the leatherback sea turtle, the world's largest species. Leatherback turtles can grow to be 7ft (2.1m) long and weigh up to 2,000lbs (900kg).

Between November and April, 550 leatherback turtles – 30% of the world's total population – lay their eggs in Gabon's Mayumba National Park. The park also serves as a breeding site for humpback whales and large groups of dolphins, including the endangered humpback dolphin.