Burundi

Burundi is a landlocked country in East Africa's Great Rift Valley, between the African Great Lakes region and southeastern Africa, bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and southeast and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, with Lake Tanganyika along its southwestern edge, and covers 27,834 square kilometers. Gitega is the political capital, while Bujumbura remains the economic center and largest city; the population was estimated at 14.15 million in 2024, about 85 percent Hutu, 14 percent Tutsi and 1 percent Twa, with Kirundi as the official national language alongside French and English. The Kingdom of Burundi endured for more than 200 years before becoming part of German East Africa in 1885 and then, after the First World War, a Belgian mandate within Ruanda-Urundi; Burundi gained independence on 1 July 1962, initially as a monarchy, becoming a republic in 1966, and endured genocides in 1972 and 1993 followed by a civil war from 1993 to 2005. Burundi is a unitary dominant-party presidential republic under authoritarian rule, governed today under a constitution adopted in 2018 with a president, prime minister, vice president and a bicameral parliament of a Senate and National Assembly.