Why DR Congo has only a tiny coast

A river, not a coast

DR Congo is the second-largest country in Africa, after Algeria, but it has a coastline of only 25 miles (40 km) on the Atlantic and is otherwise landlocked.^[1] Its main drainage is one river: the Congo’s basin covers some 3,460,000 km², and the river reaches the sea below Matadi.^[1] The capital, Kinshasa, is on the river about 515 km from its mouth.^[1]

The country was built around that river, not around a coastline. When the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 settled the Congo question, its General Act made the Congo an international river and guaranteed free trade in its basin.^[2]

A corridor between Portuguese lands

Portugal’s colony of Angola lay south of the Congo’s mouth, and Portugal claimed the north bank too. It occupied Cabinda, north of the river, in 1783, laid definite claim to it in 1815, and in a treaty with Britain of February 1884 was recognised as owning the whole coast between 5°12′ and 8° south. That treaty caused such protest from other European states that it never took effect, and the question went to the Berlin Conference.^[2]

Before the conference ended, Portugal and King Leopold’s International Association of the Congo signed a treaty on 14 February 1885. The Association recognised Portugal’s claim to Cabinda, and Portugal guaranteed the Association a narrow corridor of land to the coast.^[2] The Association became the Congo Free State, then the Belgian Congo, and in 1960 the independent Republic of the Congo, today’s DR Congo, inherited the same sliver of coast.^[2][1]

A port at last

In 2025 DP World chose a builder for Banana Port, on the Atlantic coast in Kongo Central province, which it calls the country’s first fully equipped maritime gateway. Its first phase is to have a 600-metre quay able to take the world’s largest ships and handle 450,000 TEU (standard containers) a year.^[3] In July 2025 the first phase was reported on schedule for early 2027.^[4]