Angola (/ænˈɡoʊlə/ ( listen); Portuguese: [ɐˈ̃ ɡɔlɐ]), officially the Republic of

Angola (Portuguese: República de Angola), is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. It is

the seventh-largest country in 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. Angola has
an exclave province, the province of Cabinda that borders the Republic of the Congo and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. The capital and largest city of Angola is Luanda.
The territory of Angola has been inhabited since the Paleolithic Era, hosting a wide variety of ethnic
groups, tribes and kingdoms. The nation state of Angola originated from Portuguese colonisation,
which initially began with coastal settlements and trading posts founded in the 16th century. In the
19th century, European settlers gradually began to establish themselves in the interior.
The Portuguese colony that became Angola did not have its present borders until the early 20th
century because of resistance by groups such as the Cuamato, the Kwanyama and the Mbunda.
After a protracted anti-colonial struggle, independence was achieved in 1975 as the Marxist–
Leninist People's Republic of Angola, a one-party state supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba.
The civil war between the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the
insurgent anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), supported
by the United States and apartheid South Africa, lasted until 2002. The sovereign state has since
become a relatively stable unitary, presidential constitutional republic.
Angola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy is among the fastest-growing in
the world, especially since the end of the civil war; however, the standard of living remains low for
most of the population, and life expectancy in Angola is among the lowest in the world, while infant
mortality is among the highest.[5] Angola's economic growth is highly uneven, with most of the
nation's wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population.[6]
Angola is a member state of the United Nations, OPEC, African Union, the Community of
Portuguese Language Countries, and the Southern African Development Community. A highly
multiethnic country, Angola's 25.8 million people span tribal groups, customs, and traditions.
Angolan culture reflects centuries of Portuguese rule, in the predominance of the Portuguese
language and of the Catholic Church.