Brazzaville

(redirected from Ncouna)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus.

Brazzaville

Brazzaville (brăzˈəvĭl, Fr. bräzävēlˈ), city (1984 pop. 585,812), capital of the Republic of the Congo, on Pool Malebo of the Congo River. It is the nation's largest city and its administrative, communications, and economic center. The chief industries are beverage processing, tanning, and the manufacture of construction materials, matches, and textiles. There are also machine shops. An important port on the Congo River, Brazzaville receives wood, rubber, agricultural products, and other items and sends them by railroad to Pointe-Noire, a port on the Atlantic Ocean. Motorboats connect Brazzaville with Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, across Pool Malebo. The city was founded in 1880 by Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, the Italian-French explorer; his remains were reburied there in 2006. It was the capital of French Equatorial Africa from 1910 to 1958 and was the center of Free French forces in Africa during World War II. The city's main growth began after 1945. It has a national university and a school of African art. It is also the regional headquarters of the World Health Organization. At a conference in Brazzaville in 1944, African leaders from French West and Equatorial Africa for the first time publicly called for reforms in French colonial rule, thus starting the colonies on the road to independence. In late 1960 leaders of newly independent French-speaking African nations met in the city; the “Brazzaville group” of states, which adopted a moderate political stance on most African and international issues of the time, took its name from this meeting.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Brazzaville

(from the name Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza), a city, capital of the People’s Republic of the Congo. It lies on the right bank of the lower course of the Congo River, on the lakelike broadening of the river at Stanley Pool, opposite Kinshasa. In 1965 the city, including its suburbs, had a population of 156,000.

Brazzaville was founded in 1880 by de Brazza as a French military post. It acquired political and economic significance at the turn of the 20th century. From 1905 to 1910 it was the administrative center of the French Congo and from 1910 to 1958 of French Equatorial Africa and Middle Congo. During World War II it was one of the main African strongholds of the Free French movement, headed by de Gaulle. From 1960 it was the capital of the Republic of the Congo and from December 1969 of the People’s Republic of the Congo.

Brazzaville is the center for transport, trade, industry, and finance of the country. It is a river port and the point of origin for upstream shipping on the Congo River. It is connected by railroad and highway with the seaport Pointe Noire, and it has an airport of international importance (Maya-Maya). Various factories in Brazzaville manufacture spun and woven goods, ready-made clothing, matches, and cigarettes; mills produce beer, artificial ice, butter, and fruit drinks and mineral water. There are also other enterprises. Fish are dried and smoked, and there are ship-repair yards. Handicrafts include wood carving and artistic ceramics. The Institute of Central African Research and the Pasteur Institute are located there.

The central part of Brazzaville lies on the high terraces of the right bank of the Congo River and includes three districts—Plateau, Chad, and the residential area, Aiglon— with administrative and apartment buildings in the contemporary style (the cathedral church of St. Anne, 1949; the Air France building; the airline’s hotel, the stadium, the Lycée; a bank designed by the architect H. Chomette is a four-story building with a high portico, resting on flat rectangular supports and a facade in the form of a loggia). Modern dwellings are characterized by roofs with a large overhang, which shelters the walls from the sun. Along the river are the commercial quarters, the Plain, and the industrial area, M’Pila. On the outskirts are huts of the local type and low-story prefabricated apartment houses.

REFERENCE

Frey, R. Brazzaville, capitate de I’ A.E.F. (Encyclopédie mensuelle d’outremer, 1954.)

Brazzaville

the capital of Congo-Brazzaville, in the south on the River Congo. Pop.: 1 153 000 (2005 est.)