The cities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are

administrative divisions Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

s with the exception of

Kinshasa Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one o ...

which itself has the status of a province. Cities are further divided into

communes An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, relig ...

. They are led by mayors except for Kinshasa which is led by a governor.

Provincial cities

The 25 provinces of DR Congo are divided into 32 cities (fr. ''villes'', sing. ''ville'') and 145

territories A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

(fr. ''territoires'', sing. ''territoire''). Each provincial division is also a constituency of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

as well as of the Provincial Assembly of its province. Each city is led by a mayor (fr. ''maire'') and is further divided into communes with each commune led by a

burgomaster Burgomaster (alternatively spelled burgermeister, literally "master of the town, master of the borough, master of the fortress, master of the citizens") is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief m ...

(fr. ''bourgmestre''). Currently mayors, burgomasters, and their deputies are appointed by the government.

Elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operate ...

to bring about elected local government are scheduled for December 2023—May 2024. All provincial capitals are, by

organic law An organic law is a law, or system of laws, that form the foundation of a government, corporation or any other organization's body of rules. A constitution is a particular form of organic law for a sovereign state. By country France Under Article ...

, cities and do not need to meet the requirement of having a population of at least 100,000.

Kinshasa

The capital city of Kinshasa is a one of a kind administrative division due to article 2 of the Constitution which makes it a division of the country and gives it the status of a province. In practice this means that—like a province—it has a provincial government with an elected governor and an Assembly, but—like a city—it is divided into communes led by burgomasters. Uniquely, its 24 communes are also Provincial Assembly constituencies and are grouped into four National Assembly constituencies.

List of cities

Due to the lack of reliable and comparable population figures, electoral districts are allocated seats in proportion to their voter registration numbers. The number of seats allocated to a city in the National Assembly and the Provincial Assembly is one measure of its relative political importance nationally and within its province respectively. In 2018 cities accounted for 27% of the electorate, or 16% when Kinshasa is excluded.The total 2018 electorate was 40,371,439 as stated in Annex I.3 p. 7.

Cities in the making

In mid-2018, just before the

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

, the government upheld the granting of city status to 66 other populated places. It was further decided to make these cities operational in stages. Since then the following ones have had their first mayor appointed and take office:

Notes and references

Cited Works