Gabon–Republic of the Congo border
A long, winding line of rivers and watersheds from the Cameroon tripoint to the Atlantic, drawn loosely between two French colonies and never demarcated. Between 1925 and 1946 Gabon’s whole Haut-Ogooué district, around Franceville, was run as part of Middle Congo instead.
Written from cited sourcesLast checked 30 September 2026Suggest a correction
See it on the globe:Gabon →Republic of the Congo →
A line inside French Equatorial Africa
France ran both Gabon and Middle Congo until independence in 1960, and the boundary between them was only an internal administrative line. It mostly follows rivers and watersheds but was never described in great detail during the colonial period, and it has never been demarcated on the ground.[1]
The line also moved. The Haut-Ogooué district of Gabon, with Franceville as its capital, was attached to Middle Congo by an arrêté of 15 April 1925, effective 1 July. It returned to Gabon by a decree of 16 October 1946 with its Franceville and Okondja subdivisions; the Zanaga subdivision, once part of the district, stayed with Congo.[2]
Unfinished business
From the 1970s the two governments noted several disputed areas, including their maritime frontier. In 2014 they signed a protocol setting up a joint commission to resolve them; its experts have met several times but have not yet completed a detailed delimitation or modern demarcation.[1]
Timeline
More borders
Sources
- [1]Gabon–Republic of the Congo Land Boundary · Sovereign Limits
- [2]Haut-Ogooué, Circonscription (Gabon), place record (updated 21 August 2017) · Archives nationales d’outre-mer (France) · 21 August 2017
Map geometry from Natural Earth via world-atlas. See credits.