M'banza-Kongo

M'banza-Kongo (, , or , known as São Salvador in Portuguese from 1570 to 1976; ), is the capital of Angola's northwestern Zaire Province with a population of 148,000 in 2014. M'banza Kongo was the capital of the Kingdom of Kongo since its foundation before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1483 until the abolition of the kingdom in 1915, aside from a brief period of abandonment during civil wars in the 17th century. In 2017, M'banza Kongo was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Geography Mbanza-Kongo 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. History Mbanza-Kongo (formerly called Nkumba a Ngudi, Mongo wa Kaila and Kongo dia Ngunga ) was founded by the first manikongo, Lukeni, at a junction of major trade routes. The Kingdom of Kongo at its peak reached from southern Africa's Atlantic coast to the Nkisi River. The Manikongo was chosen by clan leaders to rule some 300 mi2, an area that today is part of several countries. The Portuguese who first reached it in 1491 travelled ten days to get there from the mouth of the Congo River. The earliest documented kings referred to their city in their correspondence as "the city of Congo" (cidade do Congo), and the name of the city as São Salvador appears for the first time in the letters of Álvaro I of Kongo (1568–1587) and was carried on by his successors.