Empire · 1830–1962 · Europe

Belgium and the Belgian Congo

Also known as Belgium, Belgian Congo, Zaire (Belgium), Rwanda (Belgium)

Belgium broke away from the Netherlands in 1830 and became a constitutional kingdom under Leopold I. His son Leopold II, eager for a colony, used explorers and a front of humanitarian societies to win international recognition at the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 for the Congo Free State, which he owned personally.

Its rubber and ivory profits were extracted through forced labour, hostage-taking and mutilation, and millions died from violence, famine and disease. International outrage forced Belgium to annex the territory as the Belgian Congo in 1908. The state, the Catholic Church and mining companies then ran it as a paternalist colony that allowed Africans almost no higher education. After the First World War Belgium also governed Ruanda-Urundi. Congo became independent in 1960, and Rwanda and Burundi in 1962.

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Years

1830–1962

Capital

Brussels (Léopoldville in the Congo)

Greatest extent

1938, about 2.43 million km²

Region

Europe

c. 2.43M km² (Wikipedia); the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi were about 80 times the size of Belgium