City of rapids — Ubangi riverside life, palm wine and the heart of Africa's ancient forest
Bangui is the capital of the Central African Republic, sitting on the north bank of the Ubangi River that forms the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo — on clear days the Congolese rainforest is visible across the water. It is one of the world's least-visited capitals, a river city of palm-tree-lined boulevards, covered markets overflowing with dried caterpillars, plantain, and cassava, and wooden pirogues navigating the Ubangi rapids at low season. The surrounding Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve is home to western lowland gorillas and forest elephants, and the Baka pygmy communities…
The site of Bangui was established as a French colonial outpost in 1889 at the navigable limit of the Ubangi River — upstream of the rapids it sits on, the river becomes unnavigable. The territory became the French colony of Ubangi-Shari, part of French Equatorial Africa, and gained independence in 1960 as the Central African Republic. The country became notorious for the brutal self-declared emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa (1966–1979), who had himself crowned Emperor of Central Africa in a ceremony modelled on Napoleon's coronation, using a third of the country's annual GDP. The CAR has experienc…