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| Motto: Union Travail Justice | |||||
| Anthem: La Concorde | |||||
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| Capital | Libreville <span class="plainlinksneverexpand" > 0°30′ N 09°32′ E | ||||
| Largest city | Libreville | ||||
| Official languages | French | ||||
| Government | Presidential Republic Omar Bongo Jean-François Ntoutoume Emane | ||||
| Independence - Declared | (from France) August 17, 1960 | ||||
| Area • Total • Water (%) | 267,667 km² ( 74th) Negligible | ||||
| Population • July 2004 est. • — census • Density | <td 1,355,246 ( 148th)—4.6/km² (183rd)>- style="vertical-align: top;"GDP (PPP) • Total • Per capita | 2003 estimate$9.5 billion ( 138th)$6,977 ( 89th) | |||
| Currency | CFA franc ( XOF) | ||||
| Time zone • Summer (DST) | UTC1 (UTC +1)unknown (UTC +1) | ||||
| Internet TLD | .ga | ||||
| Calling code | + 241 | ||||
Several Bantu groups occupied the area that is now Gabon when France occupied it in 1885. In 1910, Gabon became one of the four territories of French Equatorial Africa, a federation that survived until 1959. These territories became independent on August 17, 1960.
The first president of Gabon, elected in 1961, was Léon M’ba, with Omar Bongo as his vice president. When M'Ba died in 1967, Bongo replaced him as president, and has been the head of state ever since and also won re-election.
In March 1991 a new constitution was adopted. Among its provisions are a Western-style bill of rights, the creation of the National Council of Democracy that also oversees the guarantee of those rights and a governmental advisory board which deals with economic and social issues. Multi-party legislative elections were held in 1990-91 even though opposition parties had not been declared formally legal.
President El Hadj Omar Bongo was re-elected in December 1998, obtaining 66% of the votes cast. Although the main opposition parties claimed that the elections had been manipulated, there was none of the civil disturbance that followed the 1993 election. The president retains strong powers, such as authority to dissolve the National Assembly, declare a state of siege, delay legislation, conduct referenda, and appoint and dismiss the prime minister and cabinet members.
See: List of Presidents of Gabon
Gabon is located on the Atlantic coast of central Africa. Clockwise from the northwest, it is bounded by Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, and the Republic of Congo.
Gabon's largest river is the Ogooué. Gabon is also noted for efforts to preserve the natural environment with what may be the largest area of nature parks in the world.
See: List of places in Gabon, Provinces of Gabon
Gabon is more prosperous than most nearby countries, with a Per capita income of four times the average for Sub-Saharan Africa. This is in large part due to offshore oil production that has produced substantial wealth, although the distribution of income from this industry is extremely unequal.
During the 1990s, Devaluation of the CFA franc left Gabon struggling to pay its overseas debt; France and the IMF have provided further loans and aid in exchange for the implementation of changes to the economy.
Almost all Gabonese are of Bantu origin. Gabon has at least 40 ethnic groups with separate languages and cultures. The largest is the Fang. Others include the Myene, Bandjabi, Eshira, Bapounou, and Okande. Ethnic group boundaries are less sharply drawn in Gabon than elsewhere in Africa. French, the Official language, is a unifying force. More than 10,000 French people live in Gabon, and France predominates foreign cultural and commercial influences. Historical and environmental factors caused Gabon's population to decline between 1900 and 1940. It is one of the least-densely inhabited countries in Africa, and a labor shortage is a major obstacle to development and a draw for foreign workers. The population is generally accepted to be just over 1 million but remains in dispute.
Population: 1,208,436
note: Estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower Life expectancy, higher Infant mortality and Death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2000 est.)
| Countries in Africa | ||
| Algeria | Angola | Benin | Botswana | Burkina Faso | Burundi | Cameroon | Cape Verde | Central African Republic | Chad | Comoros | Democratic Republic of the Congo | Republic of the Congo | Côte d'Ivoire | Djibouti | Egypt | Equatorial Guinea | Eritrea | Ethiopia | Gabon | The Gambia | Ghana | Guinea | Guinea-Bissau | Kenya | Lesotho | Liberia | Libya | Madagascar | Malawi | Mali | Mauritania | Mauritius | Morocco | Mozambique | Namibia | Niger | Nigeria | Rwanda | São Tomé and Príncipe | Senegal | Seychelles | Sierra Leone | Somalia/Somaliland | South Africa | Sudan | Swaziland | Tanzania | Togo | Tunisia | Uganda | Western Sahara/SADR | Zambia | Zimbabwe | ||
| Dependencies: British Indian Ocean Territory | Canary Islands | Ceuta and Melilla | Madeira Islands | Mayotte | Réunion | Saint Helena and dependencies | ||