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Mbanza Kongo
Mbanza-Kongo (, , or , known as São Salvador in Portuguese from 1570 to 1975), is the capital of Angola's northwestern Zaire Province with a population of 148,000 (2014). Mbanza Kongo (properly Mbanza Koongo or Kôngo in most acceptable orthographies) was founded some time before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1483 and was the capital of the Kilukeni dynasty ruling at that time. The site was temporarily abandoned during civil wars in the 17th century. It lies close to Angola's border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located at around and sits on top of an impressive flat-topped mountain, sometimes called Mongo a Kaila (mountain of division) because recent legends recall that the king created the clans of the kingdom and sent them out from there. In the valley to the south runs the Luezi River. In 2017, Mbanza Kongo was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. History Mbanza-Kongo (formerly called ''Nkumba a Ngudi'', ''Mongo wa Kaila'' and ''Kongo dia Ngung ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Municipalities Of Angola
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the governing body of a given municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district. The term is derived from French and Latin . The English word ''municipality'' derives from the Latin social contract (derived from a word meaning "duty holders"), referring to the Latin communities that supplied Rome with troops in exchange for their own incorporation into the Roman state (granting Roman citizenship to the inhabitants) while permitting the communities to retain their own local governments (a limited autonomy). A municipality can be any political jurisdiction, from a sovereign state such as the Principality of Monaco, to a small village such as West Hampton Dunes, New York. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manikongo
The Manikongo, or Mwene Kongo, was the title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo, a kingdom that existed from the 14th to the 19th centuries and consisted of land in present-day Angola, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The manikongo's seat of power was Mbanza Kongo (also called ''São Salvador'' from 1570 to 1975), now the capital of Zaire Province in Angola. The manikongo appointed governors for the provinces of the Kingdom and received tribute from neighbouring subjects. The term "manikongo" is derived from Portuguese ''manicongo'', an alteration of the KiKongo term ''Mwene Kongo'' (literally "lord of Kongo"). The term ''wene'', from which ''mwene'' is derived, is also used to mean kingdom and is attested with this meaning in the Kongo catechism of 1624 with reference to the Kingdom of Heaven. The term ''mwene'' is created by adding the personal prefix ''mu-'' to this stem, to mean "person of the kingdom". ''Mwene'' is attested in ver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Mbwila
Battle of Mbwila (also the Battle of Ambuila, Battle of Mbuila, or Battle of Ulanga) was a battle that occurred on 29 October 1665 in which Portuguese forces defeated the forces of the Kingdom of Kongo and decapitated king António I of Kongo, also called Nvita a Nkanga. Origins of the War Although Kongo and Portugal had been trading partners and participated in a cultural exchange during the sixteenth century, the establishment of the Portuguese colony of Angola in 1575 put pressure on that relationship. Kongo initially assisted Portugal in Angola, sending an army to rescue the Portuguese governor Paulo Dias de Novais when his war against the nearby African kingdom of Ndongo failed in 1579. But subsequently as Portugal became stronger it began to press harder, and in 1622 severed even the cautiously friendly relationship of the earlier period when a large Portuguese army invaded southern Kongo and defeated the local forces at the Battle of Mbumbi. Pedro II, king of Kongo at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oratory (worship)
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, an oratory is a place which is set aside by permission of an ordinary for divine worship, for the convenience of some community or group of the faithful who assemble there, but to which other members of the faithful may have access with the consent of the competent superior. The word ''oratory'' comes from the Latin verb ''orare'', to pray. History Oratories seem to have been developed in chapels built at the shrines of martyrs, for the faithful to assemble and pray on the spot. The oldest extant oratory is the Archiepiscopal Chapel in Ravenna (). The term is often used for very small structures surviving from the first millennium, especially in areas where the monasticism of Celtic Christianity was dominant; in these cases it may represent an archaeological guess as to function, in the absence of better evidence. Public, semi-public, private Previously, canon law distinguished several types of oratories: private (with use restricted t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hinterland
Hinterland is a German word meaning "the land behind" (a city, a port, or similar). Its use in English was first documented by the geographer George Chisholm in his ''Handbook of Commercial Geography'' (1888). Originally the term was associated with the area of a port in which materials for export and import are stored and shipped. Subsequently, the use of the word expanded to include any area under the influence of a particular human settlement. Geographic region * An area behind a coast or the shoreline of a river. Specifically, by the ''doctrine of the hinterland,'' the hinterland is the inland region lying behind a port and is claimed by the state that owns the coast. * In shipping usage, a port's hinterland is the area that it serves, both for imports and for exports. * The term is also used to refer to the area around a city or town. * More generally, ''hinterland'' can refer to the rural area economically tied to an urban catchment area. The size of a hinterland can depe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afonso II Of Kongo
Afonso II was a ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo in 1561. Biography Little is known about Afonso II or his reign. Duarte Lopes told Filippo Pigafetta the Italian humanist who composed a description of Kongo in 1591 that Diogo I's succession was disputed by three pretenders, His son, who few favored was immediately killed, and a second person was elected favored by the majority of the people, but the Portuguese in the capital murdered him , while the party of the second king murdered the Portuguese favorite and then set out a general massacre of Portuguese. However, contemporary records support a different course of events, the first elected king, Afonso II, ruled only a few days, though he had Portuguese support and was overthrown as being illegitimate by Bernardo. No contemporary sources mention Afonso II by name, perhaps because his reign was so short, but his name appeared on a list of kings written by Antonio da Silva, a Kongo historian who served as Duke of Mbamba in 1617. See ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Évora
Évora ( , ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. It has 53,591 inhabitants (2021), in an area of 1307.08 km2. It is the historic capital of the Alentejo and serves as the seat of the Évora District. Due to its well-preserved old town centre, still partially enclosed by medieval walls, and many monuments dating from various historical periods, including a Roman Temple, Évora is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Due to its inland position, Évora is one of Portugal's hottest cities in the summer, frequently subject to heat waves. Évora is ranked number two in the Portuguese most livable cities survey of living conditions published yearly by ''Expresso''. It was ranked first in a study concerning competitiveness of the 18 Portuguese district capitals, according to a 2006 study made by Minho University economics researchers. Along with Liepāja, Latvia, Évora was chosen to be European Capital of Culture in 2027. History Early history Évora has a history dating ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alvor Agreement
The Alvor Agreement, signed on 15 January 1975 in Alvor, Portugal, granted Angola independence from Portugal on 11 November and formally ended the 13-year-long Angolan War of Independence. The agreement was signed by the Portuguese government, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), and it established a transitional government composed of representatives of those four parties. It was not signed by the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) or the Eastern Revolt as the other parties excluded them from negotiations. The transitional government soon fell apart, with each of the nationalist factions, distrustful of the others and unwilling to share power, attempting to take control of the country by force. This initiated the Angolan Civil War. The name of the agreement comes from the village of Alvor, in the southern Portuguese regi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Álvaro I Of Kongo
Álvaro I Nimi a Lukeni lua Mvemba was a Manikongo (Mwene Kongo), or king of Kongo, from 1568 to 1587 and the founder of the Kwilu dynasty. Biography Álvaro's father was an unknown Kongo nobleman who died, leaving his mother to remarry to King Henrique I. When Henrique I died fighting on the eastern frontier, he had left Álvaro as his regent. According to Duarte Lopes, Kongo's ambassador to Rome in 1584-88, Álvaro had taken up the kingship by common consent. However, there do appear to have been others who wished to be king, and some scholars, notably Francois Bontinck, think that Álvaro's rule was seen as an usurpation. The invasion of the Jagas, which took place shortly after Álvaro became king, is sometimes seen as a protest against this usurpation. Other scholars, however, doubt the connection between the Jaga invasion and a dynastic crisis. The Jagas, however, did create a major problem for Álvaro, who had to abandon the capital of Mbanza Kongo, and flee to an isla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congo River
The Congo River ( kg, Nzâdi Kôngo, french: Fleuve Congo, pt, Rio Congo), formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the second largest river in the world by discharge volume, following only the Amazon. It is also the world's deepest recorded river, with measured depths around . The Congo- Lualaba- Chambeshi River system has an overall length of , which makes it the world's ninth- longest river. The Chambeshi is a tributary of the Lualaba River, and ''Lualaba'' is the name of the Congo River upstream of Boyoma Falls, extending for . Measured along with the Lualaba, the main tributary, the Congo River has a total length of . It is the only major river to cross the Equator twice. The Congo Basin has a total area of about , or 13% of the entire African landmass. Name The name ''Congo/Kongo'' originates from the Kingdom of Kongo once located on the southern bank of the river. The kingdom in turn was name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nkisi River
or (plural varies: , , or ) are spirits or an object that a spirit inhabits. It is frequently applied to a variety of objects used throughout the Congo Basin in Central Africa, especially in the Territory of Cabinda that are believed to contain spiritual powers or spirits. The term and its concept have passed with the Atlantic slave trade to the Americas. Meaning The current meaning of the term derives from the root , referring to a spiritual entity or material objects in which it is manifested or inhabits in Proto-Njila, an ancient subdivision of the Bantu language family. In its earliest attestations in Kikongo dialects in the early seventeenth century, it was transliterated as in Dutch, as the ''mu-'' prefix in this noun class was still pronounced. It was reported by Dutch visitors to Loango, current territory of Cabinda, in the 1668 book '' Description of Africa'' as referring both to a material item and the spiritual entity that inhabits it. In the sixteenth century, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
