Fact Finder - Geography

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a massive country in Central Africa. A common tricky question involves its access to the sea. While it looks entirely landlocked on many low-detail maps, the DRC actually has a tiny, 23-mile (37 km) coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. This thin strip of land, which contains the port city of Muanda, prevents the country from being landlocked and separates the Angolan province of Cabinda from the rest of Angola. This 'panhandle' was a result of colonial negotiations at the Berlin Conference to give the then-Congo Free State an outlet to the ocean for trade. Without this small corridor, the DRC would be the largest landlocked country in the world by population.