Angola

Angola is a country on the western coast of Southern Africa, bordered by Namibia to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Zambia to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and includes the separate exclave province of Cabinda, which borders the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; at 1,246,700 square kilometers it is the world's twenty-second-largest country and the seventh-largest in Africa. Luanda is its capital and most populous city, and the population was estimated at 36.6 million in 2024. As the second-largest Portuguese-speaking country after Brazil in both area and population, Angola's culture reflects centuries of Portuguese colonial influence alongside indigenous traditions; the country fought a war of independence from 1961 to 1974 before gaining independence from Portugal on 11 November 1975, and then endured a civil war that lasted until 2002. Angola is a unitary presidential republic under the constitution adopted in 2010, with President Joao Lourenco having succeeded Jose Eduardo dos Santos in 2017; since the civil war ended, Angola has emerged as a relatively stable constitutional republic with one of the world's fastest-growing economies, though its wealth remains concentrated among a small share of the population.