Bong Town (also known as Bong Mine Community or just Bong) is a populated place in the

Bong County Bong is a county in the north-central portion of the West African nation of Liberia. One of 15 counties that comprise the first-level of administrative division in the nation, it has twelve districts. Gbarnga serves as the capital. The area of th ...

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

. The Bong Mining Company was founded by Thyssen (Germany). Bong Mine

From its establishment in 1958 through the late 1980s, the Bong Mining Company (BMC), a German-Italian-owned

concession Concession may refer to: General * Concession (contract) (sometimes called a concession agreement), a contractual right to carry on a certain kind of business or activity in an area, such as to explore or develop its natural resources or to opera ...

in Liberia built a substantial mining complex to

surface mine Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which ...

the

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...

of the mountain range just on the north side of the Margibi/Bong county borderline. Notably, the company constructed and maintained one of Liberia's main rail lines to the remote site to ship the iron ore from the mountains. The town has one government secondary school. Many German children went to the formerly German school, especially in the sixties, seventies and eighties. There was also a smaller British School for the children of English speaking employees. Since 2009, the China Union Investment Company concession has begun to rebuild the complex and also has begun construction of a new paved road southward to Kakata. As of June 2012, the road had about 1/5 of its total distance covered with pavement with one small bridge under active construction just outside Kakata.

Geography

Bong town is connected by a partially paved road to Kakata and a rail line to the

Freeport of Monrovia The Freeport of Monrovia is the main commercial port facility in the West African nation of Liberia. It was artificially created on Bushrod Island near Monrovia in 1948. The facility contains four piers and one main wharf with four berths. The po ...

. The town is directly situated on a small iron ore-rich mountain range. Handi town is a small populated area north of Bong Town near the river.

Notable people

* 2C (1987), United States-based singer and songwriter

External links

The Bong Mine Railway, Liberia
* Bong Mine Truck

References

Populated places in Liberia Bong County {{Liberia-geo-stub