Cameroon–Republic of the Congo border

French Congo and Kamerun

The French naval officer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza explored much of what is now the Republic of the Congo between 1875 and 1882, signing treaties with local chiefs that France ratified in 1882. Germany proclaimed a protectorate over Kamerun in July 1884. Franco-German agreements in 1885 and 1894 ran a line between them, partly along the Ngoko and the 2nd parallel.^[1]

A convention of 18 April 1908 replaced the 1894 line and gave today’s border: the parallel of 2°10′20″N east from the Ayina, a short watershed, then the Dja and Ngoko rivers to the Sangha, and up the Sangha to the Central African Republic. Where the line followed a river it ran down the deepest channel, and the islands in the Ayina and Ngoko went to France.^[1]

“…the boundary shall run at an equal distance from the French road and the German road, as shown on the map annexed to this Protocol.”^[1]

A corridor and back

Just before the First World War, a convention of 4 November 1911 moved Kamerun’s border well south of the present line, and France ceded a strip along both banks of the Sangha that gave Germany access to the Congo river. After the war that land went back to French Equatorial Africa, and in 1922 the League of Nations split Kamerun into French and British mandates.^[1]

Cameroon became independent on 1 January 1960 and the Republic of the Congo on 15 August 1960.^[1]

Sangha Trinational

At the eastern end, where Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Republic of the Congo meet, three neighbouring national parks form the Sangha Trinational World Heritage site: Lobéké in Cameroon, Dzanga-Ndoki in the Central African Republic and Nouabalé-Ndoki in the Congo. Together they cover about 750,000 hectares of largely untouched humid forest, home to forest elephants, western lowland gorillas and chimpanzees.^[2]