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nslation of the ancient Hindu texts, the Upanishads, translated by French writer Anquetil du Perron from the Persian translation of Prince Dara Shukoh entitled SirreAkbar "The Great Secret". He was so impressed by its philosophy that he called it "the production of the highest human wisdom", and believed it contained superhuman concepts. Schopenhauer considered India as "the land of the most ancient and most pristine wisdom, the place from which Europeans could trace their descent and the tradition by which they had been influenced in so many decisive ways", and regarded the Upanishads as "the most profitable and elevating reading which ... is possible in the world. It has been the solace of my life, and will be the solace of my death."
Schopenhauer was first introduced to Anquetil du Perron's translation by Friedrich Majer in 1814. They met during the winter of 18131814 in Weimar at the home of Schopenhauer's mother, according to the biographer Safranski. Majer was a follower of Herder, and an early Indolog |
ist. Schopenhauer did not begin serious study of the Indic texts until the summer of 1814. Safranski maintains that, between 1815 and 1817, Schopenhauer had another important crosspollination with Indian thought in Dresden. This was through his neighbor of two years, Karl Christian Friedrich Krause. Krause was then a minor and rather unorthodox philosopher who attempted to mix his own ideas with ancient Indian wisdom. Krause had also mastered Sanskrit, unlike Schopenhauer, and they developed a professional relationship. It was from Krause that Schopenhauer learned meditation and received the closest thing to expert advice concerning Indian thought.
The book Oupnekhat Upanishad always lay open on his table, and he invariably studied it before going to bed. He called the opening up of Sanskrit literature "the greatest gift of our century", and predicted that the philosophy and knowledge of the Upanishads would become the cherished faith of the West. Most noticeable, in the case of Schopenhauer's work, was the |
significance of the Chandogya Upanishad, whose Mahvkya, Tat Tvam Asi, is mentioned throughout The World as Will and Representation.
Buddhism
Schopenhauer noted a correspondence between his doctrines and the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. Similarities centered on the principles that life involves suffering, that suffering is caused by desire tah, and that the extinction of desire leads to liberation. Thus three of the four "truths of the Buddha" correspond to Schopenhauer's doctrine of the will. In Buddhism, while greed and lust are always unskillful, desire is ethically variable it can be skillful, unskillful, or neutral.
For Schopenhauer, will had ontological primacy over the intellect; desire is prior to thought. Schopenhauer felt this was similar to notions of pururtha or goals of life in Vednta Hinduism.
In Schopenhauer's philosophy, denial of the will is attained by
personal experience of an extremely great suffering that leads to loss of the will to live; or
knowledge of the essential nature of l |
ife in the world through observation of the suffering of other people.
Buddhist nirva is not equivalent to the condition that Schopenhauer described as denial of the will. Nirva is not the extinguishing of the person as some Western scholars have thought, but only the "extinguishing" the literal meaning of nirvana of the flames of greed, hatred, and delusion that assail a person's character. Schopenhauer made the following statement in his discussion of religions
If I wished to take the results of my philosophy as the standard of truth, I should have to concede to Buddhism preeminence over the others. In any case, it must be a pleasure to me to see my doctrine in such close agreement with a religion that the majority of men on earth hold as their own, for this numbers far more followers than any other. And this agreement must be yet the more pleasing to me, inasmuch as in my philosophizing I have certainly not been under its influence emphasis added. For up till 1818, when my work appeared, there was to be |
found in Europe only a very few accounts of Buddhism.
Buddhist philosopher Keiji Nishitani sought to distance Buddhism from Schopenhauer. While Schopenhauer's philosophy may sound rather mystical in such a summary, his methodology was resolutely empirical, rather than speculative or transcendental
Philosophy ... is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions.
Also note
This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration.
The argument that Buddhism affected Schopenhauer's philosophy more than any other Dharmic faith loses credence since he did not begin a serious study of Buddhism until after the publication of The World as Will and Representation in 1818. Scholars have started to revise earlier views about Schopenhauer's discovery of Buddhism. Proof of early interes |
t and influence appears in Schopenhauer's 181516 notes transcribed and translated by Urs App about Buddhism. They are included in a recent case study that traces Schopenhauer's interest in Buddhism and documents its influence. Other scholarly work questions how similar Schopenhauer's philosophy actually is to Buddhism.
Magic and occultism
Some traditions in Western esotericism and parapsychology interested Schopenhauer and influenced his philosophical theories. He praised animal magnetism as evidence for the reality of magic in his On the Will in Nature, and went so far as to accept the division of magic into lefthand and righthand magic, although he doubted the existence of demons.
Schopenhauer grounded magic in the Will and claimed all forms of magical transformation depended on the human Will, not on ritual. This theory notably parallels Aleister Crowley's system of magick and its emphasis on human will. Given the importance of the Will to Schopenhauer's overarching system, this amounts to "suggesting h |
is whole philosophical system had magical powers." Schopenhauer rejected the theory of disenchantment and claimed philosophy should synthesize itself with magic, which he believed amount to "practical metaphysics."
Neoplatonism, including the traditions of Plotinus and to a lesser extent Marsilio Ficino, has also been cited as an influence on Schopenhauer.
Interests
Schopenhauer had a wide range of interests, from science and opera to occultism and literature.
In his student years, Schopenhauer went more often to lectures in the sciences than philosophy. He kept a strong interest as his personal library contained near to 200 books of scientific literature at his death, and his works refer to scientific titles not found in the library.
Many evenings were spent in the theatre, opera and ballet; Schopenhauer especially liked the operas of Mozart, Rossini and Bellini. Schopenhauer considered music the highest art, and played the flute during his whole life.
As a polyglot, he knew German, Italian, Spanish, F |
rench, English, Latin and ancient Greek, and was an avid reader of poetry and literature. He particularly revered Goethe, Petrarch, Caldern and Shakespeare.
If Goethe had not been sent into the world simultaneously with Kant in order to counterbalance him, so to speak, in the spirit of the age, the latter would have been haunted like a nightmare many an aspiring mind and would have oppressed it with great affliction. But now the two have an infinitely wholesome effect from opposite directions and will probably raise the German spirit to a height surpassing even that of antiquity.
In philosophy, his most important influences were, according to himself, Kant, Plato and the Upanishads. Concerning the Upanishads and Vedas, he writes in The World as Will and Representation
If the reader has also received the benefit of the Vedas, the access to which by means of the Upanishads is in my eyes the greatest privilege which this still young century 1818 may claim before all previous centuries, if then the reader, I sa |
y, has received his initiation in primeval Indian wisdom, and received it with an open heart, he will be prepared in the very best way for hearing what I have to tell him. It will not sound to him strange, as to many others, much less disagreeable; for I might, if it did not sound conceited, contend that every one of the detached statements which constitute the Upanishads, may be deduced as a necessary result from the fundamental thoughts which I have to enunciate, though those deductions themselves are by no means to be found there.
Thoughts on other philosophers
Giordano Bruno and Spinoza
Schopenhauer saw Bruno and Spinoza as philosophers not bound to their age or nation. "Both were fulfilled by the thought, that as manifold the appearances of the world may be, it is still one being, that appears in all of them. ... Consequently, there is no place for God as creator of the world in their philosophy, but God is the world itself."
Schopenhauer expressed regret that Spinoza stuck for the presentation of hi |
s philosophy with the concepts of scholasticism and Cartesian philosophy, and tried to use geometrical proofs that do not hold because of vague and overly broad definitions. Bruno on the other hand, who knew much about nature and ancient literature, presented his ideas with Italian vividness, and is amongst philosophers the only one who comes near Plato's poetic and dramatic power of exposition.
Schopenhauer noted that their philosophies do not provide any ethics, and it is therefore very remarkable that Spinoza called his main work Ethics. In fact, it could be considered complete from the standpoint of lifeaffirmation, if one completely ignores morality and selfdenial. It is yet even more remarkable that Schopenhauer mentions Spinoza as an example of the denial of the will, if one uses the French biography by Jean Maximilien Lucas as the key to Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione.
Immanuel Kant
The importance of Kant for Schopenhauer, in philosophy as well as on a personal level, cannot be overstated. Ka |
nt's philosophy was the foundation of Schopenhauer's, and he had high praise for the Transcendental Aesthetic section of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Schopenhauer maintained that Kant stands in the same relation to philosophers such as Berkeley and Plato, as Copernicus to Hicetas, Philolaus, and Aristarchus Kant succeeded in demonstrating what previous philosophers merely asserted.
Schopenhauer writes about Kant's influence on his work in the preface to the second edition of The World as Will and Representation
In his study room, one bust was of Buddha, the other was of Kant. The bond which Schopenhauer felt with the philosopher of Knigsberg is demonstrated in an unfinished poem he dedicated to Kant included in volume 2 of the Parerga
Schopenhauer dedicated one fifth of his main work, The World as Will and Representation, to a detailed criticism of the Kantian philosophy.
Schopenhauer praised Kant for his distinction between appearance and the thinginitself, whereas the general consensus in German idea |
lism was that this was the weakest spot of Kant's theory, since, according to Kant, causality can find application on objects of experience only, and consequently, thingsinthemselves cannot be the cause of appearances. The inadmissibility of this reasoning was also acknowledged by Schopenhauer. He insisted that this was a true conclusion, drawn from false premises.
PostKantian school
The leading figures of postKantian philosophyJohann Gottlieb Fichte, F. W. J. Schelling and G. W. F. Hegelwere not respected by Schopenhauer. He argued that they were not philosophers at all, for they lacked "the first requirement of a philosopher, namely a seriousness and honesty of inquiry." Rather, they were merely sophists who, excelling in the art of beguiling the public, pursued their own selfish interests such as professional advancement within the university system. Diatribes against the vacuity, dishonesty, pomposity, and selfinterest of these contemporaries are to be found throughout Schopenhauer's published writings. |
The following passage is an example
Schopenhauer deemed Schelling the most talented of the three and wrote that he would recommend his "elucidatory paraphrase of the highly important doctrine of Kant" concerning the intelligible character, if he had been honest enough to admit he was parroting Kant, instead of hiding this relation in a cunning manner.
Schopenhauer reserved his most unqualified damning condemnation for Hegel, whom he considered less worthy than Fichte or Schelling. Whereas Fichte was merely a windbag Windbeutel, Hegel was a "commonplace, inane, loathsome, repulsive, and ignorant charlatan." The philosophers Karl Popper and Mario Bunge agreed with this distinction. Hegel, Schopenhauer wrote in the preface to his Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics, not only "performed no service to philosophy, but he has had a detrimental influence on philosophy, and thereby on German literature in general, really a downright stupefying, or we could even say a pestilential influence, which it is therefore the |
duty of everyone capable of thinking for himself and judging for himself to counteract in the most express terms at every opportunity."
Influence and legacy
Schopenhauer remained the most influential German philosopher until the First World War. His philosophy was a starting point for a new generation of philosophers including Julius Bahnsen, Paul Deussen, Lazar von Hellenbach, Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann, Ernst Otto Lindner, Philipp Mainlnder, Friedrich Nietzsche, Olga Plmacher and Agnes Taubert. His legacy shaped the intellectual debate, and forced movements that were utterly opposed to him, neoKantianism and positivism, to address issues they would otherwise have completely ignored, and in doing so he changed them markedly. The French writer Maupassant commented that "today even those who execrate him seem to carry in their own souls particles of his thought". Other philosophers of the 19th century who cited his influence include Hans Vaihinger, Volkelt, Solovyov and Weininger.
Schopenhauer was well |
read by physicists, most notably Einstein, Schrdinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Majorana. Einstein described Schopenhauer's thoughts as a "continual consolation" and called him a genius. In his Berlin study three figures hung on the wall Faraday, Maxwell, Schopenhauer. Konrad Wachsmann recalled "He often sat with one of the wellworn Schopenhauer volumes, and as he sat there, he seemed so pleased, as if he were engaged with a serene and cheerful work."
When Erwin Schrdinger discovered Schopenhauer "the greatest savant of the West" he considered switching his study of physics to philosophy. He maintained the idealistic views during the rest of his life. Wolfgang Pauli accepted the main tenet of Schopenhauer's metaphysics, that the thinginitself is will.
But most of all Schopenhauer is famous for his influence on artists. Richard Wagner became one of the earliest and most famous adherents of the Schopenhauerian philosophy. The admiration was not mutual, and Schopenhauer proclaimed "I remain faithful to Rossini and |
Mozart!" So he has been nicknamed "the artist's philosopher". See also Influence of Schopenhauer on Tristan und Isolde.
Under the influence of Schopenhauer, Leo Tolstoy became convinced that the truth of all religions lies in selfrenunciation. When he read Schopenhauer's philosophy, Tolstoy exclaimed "at present I am convinced that Schopenhauer is the greatest genius among men. ... It is the whole world in an incomparably beautiful and clear reflection." He said that what he has written in War and Peace is also said by Schopenhauer in The World as Will and Representation.
Jorge Luis Borges remarked that the reason he had never attempted to write a systematic account of his world view, despite his penchant for philosophy and metaphysics in particular, was because Schopenhauer had already written it for him.
Other figures in literature who were strongly influenced by Schopenhauer were Thomas Mann, Thomas Hardy, Afanasy Fet, J.K. Huysmans and George Santayana. In Herman Melville's final years, while he wrot |
e Billy Budd, he read Schopenhauer's essays and marked them heavily. Scholar Brian Yothers notes that Melville "marked numerous misanthropic and even suicidal remarks, suggesting an attraction to the most extreme sorts of solitude, but he also made note of Schopenhauer's reflection on the moral ambiguities of genius." Schopenhauer's attraction to and discussions of both Eastern and Western religions in conjunction with each other made an impression on Melville in his final years.
Sergei Prokofiev, although initially reluctant to engage with works noted for their pessimism, became fascinated with Schopenhauer after reading Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life in Parerga and Paralipomena. "With his truths Schopenhauer gave me a spiritual world and an awareness of happiness."
Friedrich Nietzsche owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading The World as Will and Representation and admitted that he was one of the few philosophers that he respected, dedicating to him his essay "Schopenhauer als Erzieher |
" one of his Untimely Meditations.
Early in his career, Ludwig Wittgenstein adopted Schopenhauer's epistemological idealism, and some traits of Schopenhauer's influence particularly Schopenhauerian transcendentalism can be observed in the Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus. Later on, Wittgenstein rejected epistemological transcendental idealism for Gottlob Frege's conceptual realism. In later years, Wittgenstein became highly dismissive of Schopenhauer, describing him as an ultimately shallow thinker. His friend Bertrand Russell had a low opinion on the philosopher, and even came to attack him in his History of Western Philosophy for hypocritically praising asceticism yet not acting upon it.
Opposite to Russell on the foundations of mathematics, the Dutch mathematician L. E. J. Brouwer incorporated Kant's and Schopenhauer's ideas in the philosophical school of intuitionism, where mathematics is considered as a purely mental activity instead of an analytic activity wherein objective properties of reality are reve |
aled. Brouwer was also influenced by Schopenhauer's metaphysics, and wrote an essay on mysticism.
Schopenhauer's philosophy has made its way into a novel, The Schopenhauer Cure, by American existential psychiatrist and emeritus professor of psychiatry Irvin Yalom.
Schopenhauer's philosophy, and the discussions on philosophical pessimism it has engendered, has been the focus of contemporary thinkers such as David Benatar, Thomas Ligotti, and Eugene Thacker. Their work also served as an inspiration for the popular HBO TV series True Detective.
Selected bibliography
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason Ueber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde, 1813
On Vision and Colors Ueber das Sehn und die Farben, 1816
Theory of Colors Theoria colorum, 1830.
The World as Will and Representation alternatively translated in English as The World as Will and Idea; original German is Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung vol. 18181819, vol. 2, 1844
Vol. 1 Dover edition 1966,
Vol. |
2 Dover edition 1966,
Peter Smith Publisher hardcover set 1969,
Everyman Paperback combined abridged edition 290 pp.
The Art of Being Right Eristische Dialektik Die Kunst, Recht zu Behalten, 1831
On the Will in Nature Ueber den Willen in der Natur, 1836
On the Freedom of the Will Ueber die Freiheit des menschlichen Willens, 1839
On the Basis of Morality Ueber die Grundlage der Moral, 1840
The Two Basic Problems of Ethics On the Freedom of the Will, On the Basis of Morality Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik Ueber die Freiheit des menschlichen Willens, Ueber das Fundament der Moral, 1841.
Parerga and Paralipomena 2 vols., 1851 Reprint Oxford Clarendon Press 2 vols., 1974 English translation by E. F. J. Payne
Printings
1974 Hardcover, by ISBN
Vols. 1 and 2, ,
Vol. 1, ISBN
Vol. 2, ,
19741980 Paperback, Vol. 1, , Vol. 2, ,
2001 Paperback, Vol. 1, , Vol. 2,
Essays and Aphorisms, being excerpts from Volume 2 of Parerga und Paralipomena, selected and translated by R. J. Hollingdale, with Intr |
oduction by R J Hollingdale, Penguin Classics, 1970, Paperback 1973
An Enquiry concerning Ghostseeing, and what is connected therewith Versuch ber das Geistersehn und was damit zusammenhangt, 1851
Arthur Schopenhauer, Manuscript Remains, Volume II, Berg Publishers Ltd.,
Online
The Art Of Controversy Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten. bilingual The Art of Being Right
Studies in Pessimism audiobook from LibriVox
The World as Will and Idea at Internet Archive
Volume I
Volume II
Volume III
On the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason and On the will in nature. Two essays
Internet Archive. Translated by Mrs. Karl Hillebrand 1903.
Cornell University Library Historical Monographs Collection. Reprinted by Cornell University Library Digital Collections
Facsimile edition of Schopenhauer's manuscripts in SchopenhauerSource
Essays of Schopenhauer
See also
Antinatalism
Existential nihilism
Eye of a needle
God in Buddhism
Massacre of the Innocents Guido Reni
Misotheism
Mortal coil
Nihi |
lism
PostSchopenhauerian pessimism
References
Sources
Albright, Daniel 2004 Modernism and Music An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press.
Beiser, Frederick C., Weltschmerz Pessimism in German Philosophy, 18601900 Oxford Oxford University Press, 2016.
Hannan, Barbara, The Riddle of the World A Reconsideration of Schopenhauer's Philosophy Oxford Oxford University Press, 2009.
Magee, Bryan, Confessions of a Philosopher, Random House, 1998, . Chapters 20, 21.
Safranski, Rdiger 1990 Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy. Harvard University Press, ; orig. German Schopenhauer und Die wilden Jahre der Philosophie, Carl Hanser Verlag 1987
Thomas Mann editor, The Living Thoughts of Schopenhauer, Longmans Green Co., 1939
Further reading
Biographies
Cartwright, David. Schopenhauer A Biography, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Frederick Copleston, Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher of pessimism Burns, Oates Washbourne, 1946
O. F. Damm, Arthur Schopenhauer eine Biographie Reclam, |
1912
Kuno Fischer, Arthur Schopenhauer Heidelberg Winter, 1893; revised as Schopenhauers Leben, Werke und Lehre Heidelberg Winter, 1898.
Eduard Grisebach, Schopenhauer Geschichte seines Lebens Berlin Hofmann, 1876.
D. W. Hamlyn, Schopenhauer, London Routledge Kegan Paul 1980, 1985
Heinrich Hasse, Schopenhauer. Reinhardt, 1926
Arthur Hbscher, Arthur Schopenhauer Ein Lebensbild Leipzig Brockhaus, 1938.
Thomas Mann, Schopenhauer BermannFischer, 1938
Matthews, Jack, Schopenhauer's Will Das Testament, Nine Point Publishing, 2015. . A recent creative biography by philosophical novelist Jack Matthews.
Rdiger Safranski, Schopenhauer und die wilden Jahre der Philosophie Eine Biographie, hard cover Carl Hanser Verlag, Mnchen 1987, , pocket edition Fischer .
Rdiger Safranski, Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy, trans. Ewald Osers London Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989
Walther Schneider, Schopenhauer Eine Biographie Vienna BermannFischer, 1937.
William Wallace, Life of Arthur Schopenhauer London |
Scott, 1890; repr., St. Clair Shores, Mich. Scholarly Press, 1970
Helen Zimmern, Arthur Schopenhauer His Life and His Philosophy London Longmans, Green Co, 1876
Other books
App, Urs. Arthur Schopenhauer and China. SinoPlatonic Papers Nr. 200 April 2010 PDF, 8.7 Mb PDF, 164 p.. Contains extensive appendixes with transcriptions and English translations of Schopenhauer's early notes about Buddhism and Indian philosophy.
Atwell, John. Schopenhauer on the Character of the World, The Metaphysics of Will.
, Schopenhauer, The Human Character.
Edwards, Anthony. An Evolutionary Epistemological Critique of Schopenhauer's Metaphysics. 123 Books, 2011.
Copleston, Frederick, Schopenhauer Philosopher of Pessimism, 1946 reprinted London Search Press, 1975.
Gardiner, Patrick, 1963. Schopenhauer. Penguin Books.
, Schopenhauer A Very Short introduction.
Janaway, Christopher, 2003. Self and World in Schopenhauer's Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
Magee, Bryan, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, Oxford University |
Press 1988, reprint 1997.
Mannion, Gerard, "Schopenhauer, Religion and Morality The Humble Path to Ethics", Ashgate Press, New Critical Thinking in Philosophy Series, 2003, 314pp.
Trottier, Danick. Linfluence de la philosophie schopenhauerienne dans la vie et loeuvre de Richard Wagner; et, Questce qui sduit, obsde, magntise le philosophe dans lart des sons? deux tudes en esthtique musicale, Universit du Qubec Montral, Dpartement de musique, 2000.
Zimmern, Helen, Arthur Schopenhauer, his Life and Philosophy, London, Longman, and Co., 1876.
Articles
Jimnez, Camilo, 2006, "Tagebuch eines Ehrgeizigen Arthur Schopenhauers Studienjahre in Berlin," Avinus Magazin in German.
Luchte, James, 2009, "The Body of Sublime Knowledge The Aesthetic Phenomenology of Arthur Schopenhauer," Heythrop Journal, Volume 50, Number 2, pp. 228242.
Mazard, Eisel, 2005, "Schopenhauer and the Empirical Critique of Idealism in the History of Ideas." On Schopenhauer's debated place in the history of European philosophy and his r |
elation to his predecessors.
Moges, Awet, 2006, "Schopenhauer's Philosophy." Galileian Library.
Sangharakshita, 2004, "Schopenhauer and aesthetic appreciation."
Oxenford's "Iconoclasm in German Philosophy," See p. 388
Thacker, Eugene, 2020. "A Philosophy in Ruins, An Unquiet Void." Introduction to Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Suffering of the World. Repeater Books.
External links
Arthur Schopenhauer an article by Mary Troxell in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2011
Schopenhauersource Reproductions of Schopenhauer's manuscripts
Kant's philosophy as rectified by Schopenhauer
Timeline of German Philosophers
A Quick Introduction to Schopenhauer
Ross, Kelley L., 1998, "Arthur Schopenhauer 17881860." Two short essays, on Schopenhauer's life and work, and on his dim view of academia.
More Than 100 Years Later A Schopenhauerian Revision of Breuer's Anna O
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Angola ; , officially the Republic of Angola , is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. It is the secondlargest Lusophone Portuguesespeaking country in both total area and population behind Brazil, and is the seventhlargest country in Africa. It is bordered by Namibia to the south, the DR Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Angola has an exclave province, the province of Cabinda, that borders the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The capital and most populated city is Luanda.
Angola has been inhabited since the Paleolithic Age. Its formation as a nationstate originates from Portuguese colonisation, which initially began with coastal settlements and trading posts founded in the 16th century. In the 19th century, European settlers gradually began to establish themselves in the interior. The Portuguese colony that became Angola did not have its present borders until the early 20th century, owing to resistance by native groups such a |
s the Cuamato, the Kwanyama and the Mbunda.
After a protracted anticolonial struggle, Angola achieved independence in 1975 as a MarxistLeninist oneparty Republic. The country descended into a devastating civil war the same year, between the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola MPLA, backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba, the insurgent anticommunist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola UNITA, supported by the United States and South Africa, and the militant organisation National Liberation Front of Angola FNLA, backed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The country has been governed by MPLA ever since its independence in 1975. Following the end of the war in 2002, Angola emerged as a relatively stable unitary, presidential constitutional republic.
Angola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy is among the fastestgrowing in the world, especially since the end of the civil war; however, economic growth is highly uneven, with most of the nation's wealth conce |
ntrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population and highly concentrated in China and in the United States. The standard of living remains low for most Angolans; life expectancy is among the lowest in the world, while infant mortality is among the highest.
Since 2017, the government of Joo Loureno has made fighting corruption its flagship, so much so that many individuals of the previous government are either jailed or awaiting trial. Whilst this effort has been recognised by foreign diplomats to be legitimate, some skeptics see the actions as being politically motivated.
Angola is a member of the United Nations, OPEC, African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, and the Southern African Development Community. As of 2021, the Angolan population is estimated at 32.87 million. Angola is multicultural and multiethnic. Angolan culture reflects centuries of Portuguese rule, namely the predominance of the Portuguese language and of the Catholic Church, intermingled with a variety o |
f indigenous customs and traditions.
Etymology
The name Angola comes from the Portuguese colonial name 'Kingdom of Angola', which appeared as early as Paulo Dias de Novais's 1571 charter. The toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title held by the kings of Ndongo and Matamba. Ndongo in the highlands, between the Kwanza and Lucala Rivers, was nominally a possession of the Kingdom of Kongo, but was seeking greater independence in the 16th century.
History
Early migrations and political units
Modern Angola was populated predominantly by nomadic Khoi and San prior to the first Bantu migrations. The Khoi and San peoples were neither pastoralists nor cultivators, but rather huntergatherers. They were displaced by Bantu peoples arriving from the north in the first millennium BC, most of whom likely originated in what is today northwestern Nigeria and southern Niger. Bantu speakers introduced the cultivation of bananas and taro, as well as large cattle herds, to Angola's central highlands and the Luand |
a plain.
A number of political entities were established; the bestknown of these was the Kingdom of the Kongo, based in Angola, which extended northward to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Gabon. It established trade routes with other citystates and civilisations up to and down the coast of southwestern and western Africa and even with Great Zimbabwe and the Mutapa Empire, although it engaged in little or no transoceanic trade. To its south lay the Kingdom of Ndongo, from which the area of the later Portuguese colony was sometimes known as Dongo, and right next to them lay the Kingdom of Matamba.
Portuguese colonization
Portuguese explorer Diogo Co reached the area in 1484. The previous year, the Portuguese had established relations with the Kongo, which stretched at the time from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The Portuguese established their primary early trading post at Soyo, which is now the northernmost city in Angola apart fr |
om the Cabinda exclave. Paulo Dias de Novais founded So Paulo de Loanda Luanda in 1575 with a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Benguela was fortified in 1587 and became a township in 1617.
The Portuguese established several other settlements, forts and trading posts along the Angolan coast, principally trading in Angolan slaves for plantations. Local slave dealers provided a large number of slaves for the Portuguese Empire, usually in exchange for manufactured goods from Europe.
This part of the Atlantic slave trade continued until after Brazil's independence in the 1820s.
Despite Portugal's territorial claims in Angola, its control over much of the country's vast interior was minimal. In the 16th century Portugal gained control of the coast through a series of treaties and wars. Life for European colonists was difficult and progress was slow. John Iliffe notes that "Portuguese records of Angola from the 16th century show that a great famine occurred on average every seventy years; a |
ccompanied by epidemic disease, it might kill onethird or onehalf of the population, destroying the demographic growth of a generation and forcing colonists back into the river valleys".
During the Portuguese Restoration War, the Dutch West India Company occupied the principal settlement of Luanda in 1641, using alliances with local peoples to carry out attacks against Portuguese holdings elsewhere. A fleet under Salvador de S retook Luanda in 1648; reconquest of the rest of the territory was completed by 1650. New treaties with the Kongo were signed in 1649; others with Njinga's Kingdom of Matamba and Ndongo followed in 1656. The conquest of Pungo Andongo in 1671 was the last major Portuguese expansion from Luanda, as attempts to invade Kongo in 1670 and Matamba in 1681 failed. Colonial outposts also expanded inward from Benguela, but until the late 19th century the inroads from Luanda and Benguela were very limited. Hamstrung by a series of political upheavals in the early 1800s, Portugal was slow to mount |
a large scale annexation of Angolan territory.
The slave trade was abolished in Angola in 1836, and in 1854 the colonial government freed all its existing slaves. Four years later, a more progressive administration appointed by Portugal abolished slavery altogether. However, these decrees remained largely unenforceable, and the Portuguese depended on assistance from the British Royal Navy to enforce their ban on the slave trade. This coincided with a series of renewed military expeditions into the bush.
By the midnineteenth century Portugal had established its dominion as far north as the Congo River and as far south as Mossmedes. Until the late 1880s, Portugal entertained proposals to link Angola with its colony in Mozambique but was blocked by British and Belgian opposition. In this period, the Portuguese came up against different forms of armed resistance from various peoples in Angola.
The Berlin Conference in 18841885 set the colony's borders, delineating the boundaries of Portuguese claims in Angola |
, although many details were unresolved until the 1920s. Trade between Portugal and its African territories rapidly increased as a result of protective tariffs, leading to increased development, and a wave of new Portuguese immigrants.
Angolan independence
Under colonial law, black Angolans were forbidden from forming political parties or labour unions. The first nationalist movements did not take root until after World War II, spearheaded by a largely Westernised and Portuguesespeaking urban class, which included many mestios. During the early 1960s they were joined by other associations stemming from ad hoc labour activism in the rural workforce. Portugal's refusal to address increasing Angolan demands for selfdetermination provoked an armed conflict, which erupted in 1961 with the Baixa de Cassanje revolt and gradually evolved into a protracted war of independence that persisted for the next twelve years. Throughout the conflict, three militant nationalist movements with their own partisan guerrilla wing |
s emerged from the fighting between the Portuguese government and local forces, supported to varying degrees by the Portuguese Communist Party.
The National Front for the Liberation of Angola FNLA recruited from Bakongo refugees in Zaire. Benefiting from particularly favourable political circumstances in Lopoldville, and especially from a common border with Zaire, Angolan political exiles were able to build up a power base among a large expatriate community from related families, clans, and traditions. People on both sides of the border spoke mutually intelligible dialects and enjoyed shared ties to the historical Kingdom of Kongo. Though as foreigners skilled Angolans could not take advantage of Mobutu Sese Seko's state employment programme, some found work as middlemen for the absentee owners of various lucrative private ventures. The migrants eventually formed the FNLA with the intention of making a bid for political power upon their envisaged return to Angola.
A largely Ovimbundu guerrilla initiative ag |
ainst the Portuguese in central Angola from 1966 was spearheaded by Jonas Savimbi and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola UNITA. It remained handicapped by its geographic remoteness from friendly borders, the ethnic fragmentation of the Ovimbundu, and the isolation of peasants on European plantations where they had little opportunity to mobilise.
During the late 1950s, the rise of the MarxistLeninist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola MPLA in the east and Dembos hills north of Luanda came to hold special significance. Formed as a coalition resistance movement by the Angolan Communist Party, the organisation's leadership remained predominantly Ambundu and courted public sector workers in Luanda. Although both the MPLA and its rivals accepted material assistance from the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China, the former harboured strong antiimperialist views and was openly critical of the United States and its support for Portugal. This allowed it to win important ground |
on the diplomatic front, soliciting support from nonaligned governments in Morocco, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and the United Arab Republic.
The MPLA attempted to move its headquarters from Conakry to Lopoldville in October 1961, renewing efforts to create a common front with the FNLA, then known as the Union of Angolan Peoples UPA and its leader Holden Roberto. Roberto turned down the offer. When the MPLA first attempted to insert its own insurgents into Angola, the cadres were ambushed and annihilated by UPA partisans on Roberto's orderssetting a precedent for the bitter factional strife which would later ignite the Angolan Civil War.
Angolan Civil War
Throughout the war of independence, the three rival nationalist movements were severely hampered by political and military factionalism, as well as their inability to unite guerrilla efforts against the Portuguese. Between 1961 and 1975 the MPLA, UNITA, and the FNLA competed for influence in the Angolan population and the international community. The Soviet Uni |
on and Cuba became especially sympathetic towards the MPLA and supplied that party with arms, ammunition, funding, and training. They also backed UNITA militants until it became clear that the latter was at irreconcilable odds with the MPLA.
The collapse of Portugal's Estado Novo government following the 1974 Carnation Revolution suspended all Portuguese military activity in Africa and the brokering of a ceasefire pending negotiations for Angolan independence. Encouraged by the Organisation of African Unity, Holden Roberto, Jonas Savimbi, and MPLA chairman Agostinho Neto met in Mombasa in early January 1975 and agreed to form a coalition government. This was ratified by the Alvor Agreement later that month, which called for general elections and set the country's independence date for 11 November 1975. All three factions, however, followed up on the ceasefire by taking advantage of the gradual Portuguese withdrawal to seize various strategic positions, acquire more arms, and enlarge their militant forces. Th |
e rapid influx of weapons from numerous external sources, especially the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as the escalation of tensions between the nationalist parties, fueled a new outbreak of hostilities. With tacit American and Zairean support the FNLA began massing large numbers of troops in northern Angola in an attempt to gain military superiority. Meanwhile, the MPLA began securing control of Luanda, a traditional Ambundu stronghold. Sporadic violence broke out in Luanda over the next few months after the FNLA attacked MPLA forces in March 1975. The fighting intensified with street clashes in April and May, and UNITA became involved after over two hundred of its members were massacred by an MPLA contingent that June. An upswing in Soviet arms shipments to the MPLA influenced a decision by the Central Intelligence Agency to likewise provide substantial covert aid to the FNLA and UNITA.
In August 1975, the MPLA requested direct assistance from the Soviet Union in the form of ground troops. Th |
e Soviets declined, offering to send advisers but no troops; however, Cuba was more forthcoming and in late September dispatched nearly five hundred combat personnel to Angola, along with sophisticated weaponry and supplies. By independence, there were over a thousand Cuban soldiers in the country. They were kept supplied by a massive airbridge carried out with Soviet aircraft. The persistent buildup of Cuban and Soviet military aid allowed the MPLA to drive its opponents from Luanda and blunt an abortive intervention by Zairean and South African troops, which had deployed in a belated attempt to assist the FNLA and UNITA. The FNLA was largely annihilated, although UNITA managed to withdraw its civil officials and militia from Luanda and seek sanctuary in the southern provinces. From there, Savimbi continued to mount a determined insurgent campaign against the MPLA.
Between 1975 and 1991, the MPLA implemented an economic and political system based on the principles of scientific socialism, incorporating cent |
ral planning and a MarxistLeninist oneparty state. It embarked on an ambitious programme of nationalisation, and the domestic private sector was essentially abolished. Privately owned enterprises were nationalised and incorporated into a single umbrella of stateowned enterprises known as Unidades Economicas Estatais UEE. Under the MPLA, Angola experienced a significant degree of modern industrialisation. However, corruption and graft also increased and public resources were either allocated inefficiently or simply embezzled by officials for personal enrichment. The ruling party survived an attempted coup d'tat by the Maoistoriented Communist Organisation of Angola OCA in 1977, which was suppressed after a series of bloody political purges left thousands of OCA supporters dead see 1977 Angolan coup d'tat attempt. In the same period, the civil war culminated in its climax in a tandem of engagements, particularly the Battle of Quifangondo and soon after the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, which marked a turning point |
with a subsequent defeat of the xenophobic South African Army.
The MPLA abandoned its former Marxist ideology at its third party congress in 1990, and declared social democracy to be its new platform. Angola subsequently became a member of the International Monetary Fund; restrictions on the market economy were also reduced in an attempt to draw foreign investment. By May 1991 it reached a peace agreement with UNITA, the Bicesse Accords, which scheduled new general elections for September 1992. When the MPLA secured a major electoral victory, UNITA objected to the results of both the presidential and legislative vote count and returned to war. Following the election, the Halloween massacre occurred from 30 October to 1 November, where MPLA forces killed thousands of UNITA supporters.
21st century
On 22 March 2002, Jonas Savimbi was killed in action against government troops. UNITA and the MPLA reached a ceasefire shortly afterwards. UNITA gave up its armed wing and assumed the role of a major opposition p |
arty. Although the political situation of the country began to stabilise, regular democratic processes did not prevail until the elections in Angola in 2008 and 2012 and the adoption of a new constitution in 2010, all of which strengthened the prevailing dominantparty system.
Angola has a serious humanitarian crisis; the result of the prolonged war, of the abundance of minefields, and the continued political agitation in favour of the independence of the exclave of Cabinda carried out in the context of the protracted Cabinda conflict by the FLEC. While most of the internally displaced have now squatted around the capital, in musseques shanty towns the general situation for Angolans remains desperate.
A drought in 2016 caused the worst food crisis in Southern Africa in 25 years, affecting 1.4 million people across seven of Angola's 18 provinces. Food prices rose and acute malnutrition rates doubled, with more than 95,000 children affected.
Jos Eduardo dos Santos stepped down as President of Angola after 38 |
years in 2017, being peacefully succeeded by Joo Loureno, Santos' chosen successor.
Geography
At , Angola is the world's twentyfourth largest country comparable in size to Mali, or twice the size of France or of Texas. It lies mostly between latitudes 4 and 18S, and longitudes 12 and 24E.
Angola borders Namibia to the south, Zambia to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the northeast and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west.
The coastal exclave of Cabinda in the north has borders with the Republic of the Congo to the north and with the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south.
Angola's capital, Luanda, lies on the Atlantic coast in the northwest of the country.
Angola had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.3510, ranking it 23rd globally out of 172 countries.
Climate
Angola, although located in a tropical zone, has a climate uncharacteristic of this zone, due to the confluence of three factors
the cold Benguela Current flowing along the southern part of the coa |
st
the relief in the interior
the influence of the Namib Desert in the southwest
Angola's climate features two seasons
rainfall from November to April
drought, known as Cacimbo, from May to October, drier, as the name implies, and with lower temperatures
While the coastline has high rainfall rates, decreasing from north to south and from to , with average annual temperatures above , one can divide the interior zone into three areas
North, with high rainfall and high temperatures
Central Plateau, with a dry season and average temperatures of the order of 19 C
South, with very high thermal amplitudes due to the proximity of the Kalahari Desert and the influence of masses of tropical air
Administrative divisions
, Angola is divided into eighteen provinces provncias and 162 municipalities. The municipalities are further divided into 559 communes townships. The provinces are
Exclave of Cabinda
With an area of approximately , the Northern Angolan province of Cabinda is unusual in being separated f |
rom the rest of the country by a strip, some wide, of the Democratic Republic of Congo along the lower Congo River. Cabinda borders the Congo Republic to the north and northnortheast and the DRC to the east and south. The town of Cabinda is the chief population centre.
According to a 1995 census, Cabinda had an estimated population of 600,000, approximately 400,000 of whom are citizens of neighboring countries. Population estimates are, however, highly unreliable. Consisting largely of tropical forest, Cabinda produces hardwoods, coffee, cocoa, crude rubber and palm oil.
The product for which it is best known, however, is its oil, which has given it the nickname, "the Kuwait of Africa". Cabinda's petroleum production from its considerable offshore reserves now accounts for more than half of Angola's output. Most of the oil along its coast was discovered under Portuguese rule by the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company CABGOC from 1968 onwards.
Ever since Portugal handed over sovereignty of its former overseas provinc |
e of Angola to the local independence groups MPLA, UNITA and FNLA, the territory of Cabinda has been a focus of separatist guerrilla actions opposing the Government of Angola which has employed its armed forces, the FAAForas Armadas Angolanas and Cabindan separatists. The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of CabindaArmed Forces of Cabinda FLECFAC announced the virtual Federal Republic of Cabinda under the Presidency of N'Zita Henriques Tiago. One of the characteristics of the Cabindan independence movement is its constant fragmentation, into smaller and smaller factions.
Government and politics
The Angolan government is composed of three branches of government executive, legislative and judicial. The executive branch of the government is composed of the President, the VicePresidents and the Council of Ministers.
The legislative branch comprises a 220seat unicameral legislature, the National Assembly of Angola, elected from both provincial and nationwide constituencies. For decades, political power h |
as been concentrated in the presidency.
After 38 years of rule, in 2017 President dos Santos stepped down from MPLA leadership. The leader of the winning party at the parliamentary elections in August 2017 would become the next president of Angola. The MPLA selected the former Defense Minister Joo Loureno as Santos' chosen successor.
In what has been described as a political purge to cement his power and reduce the influence of the Dos Santos family, Loureno subsequently sacked the chief of the national police, Ambrsio de Lemos, and the head of the intelligence service, Apolinrio Jos Pereira. Both are considered allies of former president Dos Santos. He also removed Isabel Dos Santos, daughter of the former president, as head of the country's state oil company Sonangol.
Constitution
The Constitution of 2010 establishes the broad outlines of government structure and delineates the rights and duties of citizens. The legal system is based on Portuguese law and customary law but is weak and fragmented, and co |
urts operate in only 12 of more than 140 municipalities. A Supreme Court serves as the appellate tribunal; a Constitutional Court does not hold the powers of judicial review. Governors of the 18 provinces are appointed by the president. After the end of the civil war, the regime came under pressure from within as well as from the international community to become more democratic and less authoritarian. Its reaction was to implement a number of changes without substantially changing its character.
The new constitution, adopted in 2010, did away with presidential elections, introducing a system in which the president and the vicepresident of the political party that wins the parliamentary elections automatically become president and vicepresident. Directly or indirectly, the president controls all other organs of the state, so there is de facto no separation of powers. In the classifications used in constitutional law, this government falls under the category of authoritarian regime.
Armed forces
The Angolan |
Armed Forces FAA, Foras Armadas Angolanas are headed by a Chief of Staff who reports to the Minister of Defence. There are three divisionsthe Army Exrcito, Navy Marinha de Guerra, MGA and National Air Force Fora Area Nacional, FAN. Total manpower is 107,000; plus paramilitary forces of 10,000 2015 est..
Its equipment includes Russianmanufactured fighters, bombers and transport planes. There are also Brazilianmade EMB312 Tucanos for training, Czechmade L39s for training and bombing, and a variety of westernmade aircraft such as the C212Aviocar, Sud Aviation Alouette III, etc. A small number of AAF personnel are stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa and the Republic of the Congo Brazzaville.
Police
The National Police departments are Public Order, Criminal Investigation, Traffic and Transport, Investigation and Inspection of Economic Activities, Taxation and Frontier Supervision, Riot Police and the Rapid Intervention Police. The National Police are in the process of standing up an air |
wing, to provide helicopter support for operations. The National Police are developing their criminal investigation and forensic capabilities. The force has an estimated 6,000 patrol officers, 2,500 taxation and frontier supervision officers, 182 criminal investigators and 100 financial crimes detectives and around 90 economic activity inspectors.
The National Police have implemented a modernisation and development plan to increase the capabilities and efficiency of the total force. In addition to administrative reorganisation, modernisation projects include procurement of new vehicles, aircraft and equipment, construction of new police stations and forensic laboratories, restructured training programmes and the replacement of AKM rifles with 9 mm Uzis for officers in urban areas.
Justice
A Supreme Court serves as a court of appeal. The Constitutional Court is the supreme body of the constitutional jurisdiction, established with the approval of Law no. 208, of 17 June Organic Law of the Constitutional Cou |
rt and Law n. 308, of 17 June Organic Law of the Constitutional Process. The legal system is based on Portuguese and customary law. There are 12 courts in more than 140 counties in the country. Its first task was the validation of the candidacies of the political parties to the legislative elections of 5 September 2008. Thus, on 25 June 2008, the Constitutional Court was institutionalized and its Judicial Counselors assumed the position before the President of the Republic. Currently, seven advisory judges are present, four men and three women.
In 2014, a new penal code took effect in Angola. The classification of moneylaundering as a crime is one of the novelties in the new legislation.
Foreign relations
Angola is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries CPLP, also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language.
On 16 October 2014, Angola w |
as elected for the second time a nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council, with 190 favorable votes out of a total of 193. The term of office began on 1 January 2015 and expired on 31 December 2016.
Since January 2014, the Republic of Angola has been chairing the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region CIRGL. 80 In 2015, CIRGL Executive Secretary Ntumba Luaba said that Angola is the example to be followed by the members of the organization, due to the significant progress made during the 12 years of peace, namely in terms of socioeconomic stability and politicalmilitary.
Human rights
Angola is classified as 'not free' by Freedom House in the Freedom in the World 2014 report. The report noted that the August 2012 parliamentary elections, in which the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola won more than 70 of the vote, suffered from serious flaws, including outdated and inaccurate voter rolls. Voter turnout dropped from 80 in 2008 to 60.
A 2012 report by the U.S. |
Department of State said, "The three most important human rights abuses in 2012 were official corruption and impunity; limits on the freedoms of assembly, association, speech, and press; and cruel and excessive punishment, including reported cases of torture and beatings as well as unlawful killings by police and other security personnel."
Angola ranked fortytwo of fortyeight subSaharan African states on the 2007 Index of African Governance list and scored poorly on the 2013 Ibrahim Index of African Governance. It was ranked 39 out of 52 subSaharan African countries, scoring particularly badly in the areas of participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development. The Ibrahim Index uses a number of variables to compile its list which reflects the state of governance in Africa.
In 2019, homosexual acts were decriminalized in Angola, and the government also prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. The vote was overwhelming 155 for, 1 against, 7 abstaining.
Econom |
y
Angola has diamonds, oil, gold, copper and rich wildlife which was dramatically depleted during the civil war, forest and fossil fuels. Since independence, oil and diamonds have been the most important economic resource. Smallholder and plantation agriculture dramatically dropped in the Angolan Civil War, but began to recover after 2002.
Angola's economy has in recent years moved on from the disarray caused by a quartercentury of Angolan civil war to become the fastestgrowing economy in Africa and one of the fastestgrowing in the world, with an average GDP growth of 20 between 2005 and 2007. In the period 200110, Angola had the world's highest annual average GDP growth, at 11.1.
In 2004, the Exim Bank of China approved a 2 billion line of credit to Angola, to be used for rebuilding Angola's infrastructure, and to limit the influence of the International Monetary Fund there.
China is Angola's biggest trade partner and export destination as well as the fourthlargest source of imports. Bilateral trade reac |
hed 27.67 billion in 2011, up 11.5 yearonyear. China's imports, mainly crude oil and diamonds, increased 9.1 to 24.89 billion while China's exports to Angola, including mechanical and electrical products, machinery parts and construction materials, surged 38.8. The oil glut led to a local price for unleaded gasoline of 0.37 a gallon.
The Angolan economy grew 18 in 2005, 26 in 2006 and 17.6 in 2007. Due to the global recession, the economy contracted an estimated 0.3 in 2009. The security brought about by the 2002 peace settlement has allowed the resettlement of 4 million displaced persons and a resulting largescale increase in agriculture production. Angola's economy is expected to grow by 3.9 per cent in 2014 said the International Monetary Fund IMF, robust growth in the nonoil economy, mainly driven by a very good performance in the agricultural sector, is expected to offset a temporary drop in oil production.
Angola's financial system is maintained by the National Bank of Angola and managed by the govern |
or Jose de Lima Massano. According to a study on the banking sector, carried out by Deloitte, the monetary policy led by Banco Nacional de Angola BNA, the Angolan national bank, allowed a decrease in the inflation rate put at 7.96 in December 2013, which contributed to the sector's growth trend. Estimates released by Angola's central bank, said country's economy should grow at an annual average rate of 5 per cent over the next four years, boosted by the increasing participation of the private sector.
Although the country's economy has grown significantly since Angola achieved political stability in 2002, mainly due to fastrising earnings in the oil sector, Angola faces huge social and economic problems. These are in part a result of almost continual armed conflict from 1961 on, although the highest level of destruction and socioeconomic damage took place after the 1975 independence, during the long years of civil war. However, high poverty rates and blatant social inequality chiefly stems from persistent aut |
horitarianism, "neopatrimonial" practices at all levels of the political, administrative, military and economic structures, and of a pervasive corruption. The main beneficiaries are political, administrative, economic and military power holders, who have accumulated and continue to accumulate enormous wealth.
"Secondary beneficiaries" are the middle strata that are about to become social classes. However, almost half the population has to be considered poor, with dramatic differences between the countryside and the cities, where slightly more than 50 of the people reside.
A study carried out in 2008 by the Angolan Instituto Nacional de Estatstica found that in rural areas roughly 58 must be classified as "poor" according to UN norms but in the urban areas only 19, and an overall rate of 37. In cities, a majority of families, well beyond those officially classified as poor, must adopt a variety of survival strategies. In urban areas social inequality is most evident and it is extreme in Luanda. In the Human |
Development Index Angola constantly ranks in the bottom group.
In January 2020, a leak of government documents known as the Luanda Leaks showed that U.S. consulting companies such as Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey Company, and PricewaterhouseCoopers had helped members of the family of former President Jos Eduardo dos Santos especially his daughter Isabel dos Santos corruptly run Sonangol for their own personal profit, helping them use the company's revenues to fund vanity projects in France and Switzerland. After further revelations in the Pandora Papers, former generals Dias and do Nascimento and former presidential advisers were also accused of misappropriating significant public funds for personal benefit.
The enormous differences between the regions pose a serious structural problem for the Angolan economy, illustrated by the fact that about one third of economic activities are concentrated in Luanda and neighbouring Bengo province, while several areas of the interior suffer economic stagnation and |
even regression.
One of the economic consequences of social and regional disparities is a sharp increase in Angolan private investments abroad. The small fringe of Angolan society where most of the asset accumulation takes place seeks to spread its assets, for reasons of security and profit. For the time being, the biggest share of these investments is concentrated in Portugal where the Angolan presence including the family of the state president in banks as well as in the domains of energy, telecommunications, and mass media has become notable, as has the acquisition of vineyards and orchards as well as of tourism enterprises.
Angola has upgraded critical infrastructure, an investment made possible by funds from the nation's development of oil resources. According to a report, just slightly more than ten years after the end of the civil war Angola's standard of living has overall greatly improved. Life expectancy, which was just 46 years in 2002, reached 51 in 2011. Mortality rates for children fell from 2 |
5 per cent in 2001 to 19 per cent in 2010 and the number of students enrolled in primary school has tripled since 2001. However, at the same time the social and economic inequality that has characterised the country for so long has not diminished, but has deepened in all respects.
With a stock of assets corresponding to 70 billion Kz US6.8 billion, Angola is now the thirdlargest financial market in subSaharan Africa, surpassed only by Nigeria and South Africa. According to the Angolan Minister of Economy, Abrao Gourgel, the financial market of the country grew modestly since 2002 and now occupies third place in subSaharan Africa.
On 19 December 2014, the Capital Market in Angola was launched. BODIVA Angola Stock Exchange and Derivatives, in English was allocated the secondary public debt market, and was expected to launch the corporate debt market by 2015, though the stock market itself was only expected to commence trading in 2016.
Natural resources
The Economist reported in 2008 that diamonds and oil ma |
ke up 60 of Angola's economy, almost all of the country's revenue and all of its dominant exports. Growth is almost entirely driven by rising oil production which surpassed in late 2005 and was expected to grow to by 2007. Control of the oil industry is consolidated in Sonangol Group, a conglomerate owned by the Angolan government. In December 2006, Angola was admitted as a member of OPEC.
According to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank, oil production from Angola has increased so significantly that Angola now is China's biggest supplier of oil. "China has extended three multibillion dollar lines of credit to the Angolan government; two loans of 2 billion from China Exim Bank, one in 2004, the second in 2007, as well as one loan in 2005 of 2.9 billion from China International Fund Ltd."
Growing oil revenues also created opportunities for corruption according to a recent Human Rights Watch report, 32 billion US dollars disappeared from government accounts in 20072010. Furthermore, |
Sonangol, the staterun oil company, controls 51 of Cabinda's oil. Due to this market control, the company ends up determining the profit received by the government and the taxes it pays. The council of foreign affairs states that the World Bank mentioned that Sonangol is a taxpayer, it carries out quasifiscal activities, it invests public funds, and, as concessionaire, it is a sector regulator. This multifarious work program creates conflicts of interest and characterises a complex relationship between Sonangol and the government that weakens the formal budgetary process and creates uncertainty as regards the actual fiscal stance of the state."
In 2002, Angola demanded compensation for oil spills allegedly caused by Chevron Corporation, the first time it had fined a multinational corporation operating in its waters.
Operations in its diamond mines include partnerships between staterun Endiama and mining companies such as ALROSA which operate in Angola.
Access to biocapacity in Angola is higher than world a |
verage. In 2016, Angola had 1.9 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, slightly more than world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016, Angola used 1.01 global hectares of biocapacity per person their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use about half as much biocapacity as Angola contains. As a result, Angola is running a biocapacity reserve.
Agriculture
Agriculture and forestry is an area of potential opportunity for the country. The African Economic Outlook organization states that "Angola requires 4.5 million tonnes a year of grain but grows only about 55 of the maize it needs, 20 of the rice and just 5 of its required wheat".
In addition, the World Bank estimates that "less than 3 per cent of Angola's abundant fertile land is cultivated and the economic potential of the forestry sector remains largely unexploited".
Before independence in 1975, Angola was a breadbasket of southern Africa and a major exporter of bananas, coffee and sisal, but three |
decades of civil war 19752002 destroyed fertile countryside, left it littered with landmines and drove millions into the cities.
The country now depends on expensive food imports, mainly from South Africa and Portugal, while more than 90 of farming is done at the family and subsistence level. Thousands of Angolan smallscale farmers are trapped in poverty.
Transport
Transport in Angola consists of
Three separate railway systems totalling
of highway of which is paved
1,295 navigable inland waterways
five major sea ports
243 airports, of which 32 are paved.
Angola centers its port trade in five main ports Namibe, Lobito, Soyo, Cabinda and Luanda. The port of Luanda is the largest of the five, as well as being one of the busiest on the African continent.
Travel on highways outside of towns and cities in Angola and in some cases within is often not best advised for those without fourbyfour vehicles. While reasonable road infrastructure has existed within Angola, time and war have taken their toll on the |
road surfaces, leaving many severely potholed, littered with broken asphalt. In many areas drivers have established alternate tracks to avoid the worst parts of the surface, although careful attention must be paid to the presence or absence of landmine warning markers by the side of the road. The Angolan government has contracted the restoration of many of the country's roads. The road between Lubango and Namibe, for example, was completed recently with funding from the European Union, and is comparable to many European main routes. Completing the road infrastructure is likely to take some decades, but substantial efforts are already being made.
Telecommunications
The telecommunications industry is considered one of the main strategic sectors in Angola.
In October 2014, the building of an optic fiber underwater cable was announced. This project aims to turn Angola into a continental hub, thus improving Internet connections both nationally and internationally.
On 11 March 2015, the First Angolan Forum of |
Telecommunications and Information Technology was held in Luanda under the motto "The challenges of telecommunications in the current context of Angola", to promote debate on topical issues on telecommunications in Angola and worldwide. A study of this sector, presented at the forum, said Angola had the first telecommunications operator in Africa to test LTE with speeds up to 400 Mbits and mobile penetration of about 75; there are about 3.5 million smartphones in the Angolan market; There are about of optical fibre installed in the country.
The first Angolan satellite, AngoSat1, was launched into orbit on 26 December 2017. It was launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on board a Zenit 3F rocket. The satellite was built by Russia's RSC Energia, a subsidiary of the staterun space industry player Roscosmos. The satellite payload was supplied by Airbus Defence Space. Due to an onboard power failure during solar panel deployment, on 27 December, RSC Energia revealed that they lost communication |
s contact with the satellite. Although, subsequent attempts to restore communications with the satellite were successful, the satellite eventually stopped sending data and RSC Energia confirmed that AngoSat1 was inoperable. The launch of AngoSat1 was aimed at ensuring telecommunications throughout the country. According to Aristides Safeca, Secretary of State for Telecommunications, the satellite was aimed at providing telecommunications services, TV, internet and egovernment and was expected to remain in orbit "at best" for 18 years. A replacement satellite named AngoSat2 is in the works and is expected to be in service by 2020. As of February 2021, AngoSat2 was about 60 ready. The officials reported the launch is expected in about 17 months, by July 2022.
Technology
The management of the toplevel domain '.ao' passed from Portugal to Angola in 2015, following new legislation. A joint decree of Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technologies Jos Carvalho da Rocha and the minister of Science and |
Technology, Maria Cndida Pereira Teixeira, states that "under the massification" of that Angolan domain, "conditions are created for the transfer of the domain root '.ao' of Portugal to Angola".
Demographics
Angola has a population of 24,383,301 inhabitants according to the preliminary results of its 2014 census, the first one conducted or carried out since 15 December 1970. It is composed of Ovimbundu language Umbundu 37, Ambundu language Kimbundu 23, Bakongo 13, and 32 other ethnic groups including the Chokwe, the Ovambo, the Ganguela and the Xindonga as well as about 2 mulattos mixed European and African, 1.6 Chinese and 1 European. The Ambundu and Ovimbundu ethnic groups combined form a majority of the population, at 62. The population is forecast to grow to over 60 million people in 2050, 2.7 times the 2014 population. However, on 23 March 2016, official data revealed by Angola's National Statistic Institute Instituto Nacional de Estatstica INE, states that Angola has a population of 25,789,024 inhabi |
tants.
It is estimated that Angola was host to 12,100 refugees and 2,900 asylum seekers by the end of 2007. 11,400 of those refugees were originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who arrived in the 1970s. there were an estimated 400,000 Democratic Republic of the Congo migrant workers, at least 220,000 Portuguese, and about 259,000 Chinese living in Angola. 1 million Angolans are mixed race black and white.
Since 2003, more than 400,000 Congolese migrants have been expelled from Angola. Prior to independence in 1975, Angola had a community of approximately 350,000 Portuguese, but the vast majority left after independence and the ensuing civil war. However, Angola has recovered its Portuguese minority in recent years; currently, there are about 200,000 registered with the consulates, and increasing due to the debt crisis in Portugal and the relative prosperity in Angola. The Chinese population stands at 258,920, mostly composed of temporary migrants. Also, there is a small Brazilian community of ab |
out 5,000 people.
, the total fertility rate of Angola is 5.54 children born per woman 2012 estimates, the 11th highest in the world.
Languages
The languages in Angola are those originally spoken by the different ethnic groups and Portuguese, introduced during the Portuguese colonial era. The most widely spoken indigenous languages are Umbundu, Kimbundu and Kikongo, in that order. Portuguese is the official language of the country.
Although the exact numbers of those fluent in Portuguese or who speak Portuguese as a first language are unknown, a 2012 study mentions that Portuguese is the first language of 39 of the population. In 2014, a census carried out by the Instituto Nacional de Estatstica in Angola mentions that 71.15 of the nearly 25.8 million inhabitants of Angola meaning around 18.3 million people use Portuguese as a first or second language.
According to the 2014 census, Portuguese is spoken by 71.1 of Angolans, Umbundu by 23, Kikongo by 8.2, Kimbundu by 7.8, Chokwe by 6.5, Nyaneka by 3.4, Ng |
angela by 3.1, Fiote by 2.4, Kwanyama by 2.3, Muhumbi by 2.1, Luvale by 1, and other languages by 4.1.
Religion
There are about 1,000 religious communities, mostly Christian, in Angola. While reliable statistics are nonexistent, estimates have it that more than half of the population are Catholics, while about a quarter adhere to the Protestant churches introduced during the colonial period the Congregationalists mainly among the Ovimbundu of the Central Highlands and the coastal region to its west, the Methodists concentrating on the Kimbundu speaking strip from Luanda to Malanje, the Baptists almost exclusively among the Bakongo of the northwest now present in Luanda as well and dispersed Adventists, Reformed and Lutherans.
In Luanda and region there subsists a nucleus of the "syncretic" Tocoists and in the northwest a sprinkling of Kimbanguism can be found, spreading from the CongoZare. Since independence, hundreds of Pentecostal and similar communities have sprung up in the cities, whereby now about 5 |
0 of the population is living; several of these communitieschurches are of Brazilian origin.
the U.S. Department of State estimates the Muslim population at 80,00090,000, less than 1 of the population, while the Islamic Community of Angola puts the figure closer to 500,000. Muslims consist largely of migrants from West Africa and the Middle East especially Lebanon, although some are local converts. The Angolan government does not legally recognize any Muslim organizations and often shuts down mosques or prevents their construction.
In a study assessing nations' levels of religious regulation and persecution with scores ranging from 0 to 10 where 0 represented low levels of regulation or persecution, Angola was scored 0.8 on Government Regulation of Religion, 4.0 on Social Regulation of Religion, 0 on Government Favoritism of Religion and 0 on Religious Persecution.
Foreign missionaries were very active prior to independence in 1975, although since the beginning of the anticolonial fight in 1961 the Portug |
uese colonial authorities expelled a series of Protestant missionaries and closed mission stations based on the belief that the missionaries were inciting proindependence sentiments. Missionaries have been able to return to the country since the early 1990s, although security conditions due to the civil war have prevented them until 2002 from restoring many of their former inland mission stations.
The Catholic Church and some major Protestant denominations mostly keep to themselves in contrast to the "New Churches" which actively proselytize. Catholics, as well as some major Protestant denominations, provide help for the poor in the form of crop seeds, farm animals, medical care and education.
Urbanization
Health
Epidemics of cholera, malaria, rabies and African hemorrhagic fevers like Marburg hemorrhagic fever, are common diseases in several parts of the country. Many regions in this country have high incidence rates of tuberculosis and high HIV prevalence rates. Dengue, filariasis, leishmaniasis and on |
chocerciasis river blindness are other diseases carried by insects that also occur in the region. Angola has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world and one of the world's lowest life expectancies. A 2007 survey concluded that low and deficient niacin status was common in Angola. Demographic and Health Surveys is currently conducting several surveys in Angola on malaria, domestic violence and more.
In September 2014, the Angolan Institute for Cancer Control IACC was created by presidential decree, and it will integrate the National Health Service in Angola. The purpose of this new centre is to ensure health and medical care in oncology, policy implementation, programmes and plans for prevention and specialised treatment. This cancer institute will be assumed as a reference institution in the central and southern regions of Africa.
In 2014, Angola launched a national campaign of vaccination against measles, extended to every child under ten years old and aiming to go to all 18 provinces in the |
country. The measure is part of the Strategic Plan for the Elimination of Measles 20142020 created by the Angolan Ministry of Health which includes strengthening routine immunisation, a proper dealing with measles cases, national campaigns, introducing a second dose of vaccination in the national routine vaccination calendar and active epidemiological surveillance for measles. This campaign took place together with the vaccination against polio and vitamin A supplementation.
A yellow fever outbreak, the worst in the country in three decades began in December 2015. By August 2016, when the outbreak began to subside, nearly 4,000 people were suspected of being infected. As many as 369 may have died. The outbreak began in the capital, Luanda, and spread to at least 16 of the 18 provinces.
Education
Although by law education in Angola is compulsory and free for eight years, the government reports that a percentage of pupils are not attending due to a lack of school buildings and teachers. Pupils are often re |
sponsible for paying additional schoolrelated expenses, including fees for books and supplies.
In 1999, the gross primary enrollment rate was 74 per cent and in 1998, the most recent year for which data are available, the net primary enrollment rate was 61 per cent. Gross and net enrollment ratios are based on the number of pupils formally registered in primary school and therefore do not necessarily reflect actual school attendance. There continue to be significant disparities in enrollment between rural and urban areas. In 1995, 71.2 per cent of children ages 7 to 14 years were attending school. It is reported that higher percentages of boys attend school than girls. During the Angolan Civil War 19752002, nearly half of all schools were reportedly looted and destroyed, leading to current problems with overcrowding.
The Ministry of Education recruited 20,000 new teachers in 2005 and continued to implement teacher training. Teachers tend to be underpaid, inadequately trained and overworked sometimes teachin |
g two or three shifts a day. Some teachers may reportedly demand payment or bribes directly from their pupils. Other factors, such as the presence of landmines, lack of resources and identity papers, and poor health prevent children from regularly attending school. Although budgetary allocations for education were increased in 2004, the education system in Angola continues to be extremely underfunded.
According to estimates by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the adult literacy rate in 2011 was 70.4. By 2015, this had increased to 71.1. 82.9 of men and 54.2 of women are literate as of 2001. Since independence from Portugal in 1975, a number of Angolan students continued to be admitted every year at high schools, polytechnical institutes and universities in Portugal and Brazil through bilateral agreements; in general, these students belong to the elites.
In September 2014, the Angolan Ministry of Education announced an investment of 16 million Euros in the computerisation of over 300 classrooms across th |
e country. The project also includes training teachers at a national level, "as a way to introduce and use new information technologies in primary schools, thus reflecting an improvement in the quality of teaching".
In 2010, the Angolan government started building the Angolan Media Libraries Network, distributed throughout several provinces in the country to facilitate the people's access to information and knowledge. Each site has a bibliographic archive, multimedia resources and computers with Internet access, as well as areas for reading, researching and socialising. The plan envisages the establishment of one media library in each Angolan province by 2017. The project also includes the implementation of several media libraries, in order to provide the several contents available in the fixed media libraries to the most isolated populations in the country. At this time, the mobile media libraries are already operating in the provinces of Luanda, Malanje, Uge, Cabinda and Lunda South. As for REMA, the provi |
nces of Luanda, Benguela, Lubango and Soyo have currently working media libraries.
Culture
Angolan culture has been heavily influenced by Portuguese culture, especially in language and religion, and the culture of the indigenous ethnic groups of Angola, predominantly Bantu culture.
The diverse ethnic communitiesthe Ovimbundu, Ambundu, Bakongo, Chokwe, Mbunda and other peoplesto varying degrees maintain their own cultural traits, traditions and languages, but in the cities, where slightly more than half of the population now lives, a mixed culture has been emerging since colonial times; in Luanda, since its foundation in the 16th century.
In this urban culture, Portuguese heritage has become more and more dominant. African roots are evident in music and dance and is moulding the way in which Portuguese is spoken. This process is well reflected in contemporary Angolan literature, especially in the works of Angolan authors.
In 2014, Angola resumed the National Festival of Angolan Culture after a 25year brea |
k. The festival took place in all the provincial capitals and lasted for 20 days, with the theme Culture as a Factor of Peace and Development.
Cinema
In 1972, one of Angola's first feature films, Sarah Maldoror's internationally coproduced Sambizanga, was released at the Carthage Film Festival to critical acclaim, winning the Tanit d'Or, the festival's highest prize.
Literature
Angolan Writer Ndalu de Almeida, pen name Ondjaki published a novel called "Transparent City" in 2012 that takes place in Luanda, Angola.
Sports
Basketball is the second most popular sport in Angola. Its national team has won the AfroBasket 11 times and holds the record of most titles. As a top team in Africa, it is a regular competitor at the Summer Olympic Games and the FIBA World Cup. Angola is home to one of Africa's first competitive leagues.
In football, Angola hosted the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations. The Angola national football team qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, their first appearance in the World Cup finals. T |
hey were eliminated after one defeat and two draws in the group stage. They won three COSAFA Cups and finished runnerup in the 2011 African Nations Championship.
Angola has participated in the World Women's Handball Championship for several years. The country has also appeared in the Summer Olympics for seven years and both regularly competes in and once has hosted the FIRS Roller Hockey World Cup, where the best finish is sixth. Angola is also often believed to have historic roots in the martial art "Capoeira Angola" and "Batuque" which were practised by enslaved African Angolans transported as part of the Atlantic slave trade.
See also
Outline of Angola
Index of Angolarelated articles
References
Further reading
Birmingham, David 2006 Empire in Africa Angola and its Neighbors, Ohio University Press Athens, Ohio.
Bsl, Anton 2008 Angola's Parliamentary Elections in 2008. A Country on its Way to OnePartyDemocracy, KAS Auslandsinformationen 102008. Die Parlamentswahlen in Angola 2008
Cilliers, Jackie |
and Christian Dietrich, Eds. 2000. Angola's War Economy The Role of Oil and Diamonds. Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies.
Global Witness 1999. A Crude Awakening, The Role of Oil and Banking Industries in Angola's Civil War and the Plundering of State Assets. London, UK, Global Witness. A Crude Awakening
Hodges, Tony 2001. Angola from AfroStalinism to PetroDiamond Capitalism. Oxford James Currey.
Hodges, Tony 2004. Angola The Anatomy of an Oil State. Oxford, UK and Indianapolis, US, The Fridtjol Nansen Institute The International African Institute in association with James Currey and Indiana University Press.
Human Rights Watch 2004. Some Transparency, No Accountability The Use of Oil Revenues in Angola and Its Impact on Human Rights. New York, Human Rights Watch. Some Transparency, No Accountability The Use of Oil Revenue in Angola and Its Impact on Human Rights Human Rights Watch Report, January 2004
Human Rights Watch 2005. Coming Home, Return and Reintegration in Angola. New York |
, Human Rights Watch. Coming Home Return and Reintegration in Angola
James, Walter 1992. A political history of the civil war in Angola, 19641990. New Brunswick, Transaction Publishers.
Kapuciski, Ryszard. Another Day of Life, Penguin, 1975. . A Polish journalist's account of Portuguese withdrawal from Angola and the beginning of the civil war.
Kevlihan, R. 2003. "Sanctions and humanitarian concerns Ireland and Angola, 20012". Irish Studies in International Affairs 14 95106.
Lari, A. 2004. Returning home to a normal life? The plight of displaced Angolans. Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies.
Lari, A. and R. Kevlihan 2004. "International Human Rights Protection in Situations of Conflict and PostConflict, A Case Study of Angola". African Security Review 134 2941.
Le Billon, Philippe 2005 Aid in the Midst of Plenty Oil Wealth, Misery and Advocacy in Angola, Disasters 291 125.
Le Billon, Philippe 2001. "Angola's Political Economy of War The Role of Oil and Diamonds". African Affairs 100 |
5580.
MacQueen, Norrie An Ill Wind? Rethinking the Angolan Crisis and the Portuguese Revolution, 19741976, Itinerario European Journal of Overseas History, 262, 2000, pp. 2244
Mdecins Sans Frontires 2002. Angola Sacrifice of a People. Luanda, Angola, MSF.
Mwakikagile, Godfrey Nyerere and Africa End of an Era, Third Edition, Pretoria, South Africa, 2006, on Angola in Chapter 11, "American Involvement in Angola and Southern Africa Nyerere's Response", pp. 324346, .
Pearce, Justin 2004. "War, Peace and Diamonds in Angola Popular perceptions of the diamond industry in the Lundas". African Security Review 13 2, pp 5164. Wayback Machine
Porto, Joo Gomes 2003. Cabinda Notes on a soon to be forgotten war. Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies.
Tvedten, Inge 1997. Angola, Struggle for Peace and Reconstruction. Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press.
Vines, Alex 1999. Angola Unravels The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process. New York and London, UK, Human Rights Watch.
External links
Angol |
a. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
Angola from UCB Libraries GovPubs.
Angola profile from the BBC News.
Key Development Forecasts for Angola from International Futures.
Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2012 Angola Country Report
Markus Weimer, "The Peace Dividend Analysis of a Decade of Angolan Indicators, 20022012".
The participation of Hungarian soldiers in UN peacekeeping operations in Angola
1975 establishments in Angola
Central African countries
Countries in Africa
Former Portuguese colonies
Least developed countries
Member states of OPEC
Member states of the African Union
Member states of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries
Current member states of the United Nations
Portuguesespeaking countries and territories
Republics
Southern African countries
States and territories established in 1975 |
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Angola, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
According to 2014 census data, Angola had a population of 25,789,024 inhabitants in 2014.
Ethnically, there are three main groups, each speaking a Bantu language the Ovimbundu who represent 37 of the population, the Ambundu with 25, and the Bakongo 13. Other numerically important groups include the closely interrelated Chokwe and Lunda, the Ganguela and NyanekaKhumbi in both cases classification terms that stand for a variety of small groups, the Ovambo, the Herero, the Xindonga and scattered residual groups of San. In addition, mixed race European and African people amount to about 2, with a small 1 population of whites, mainly ethnically Portuguese.
As a former overseas territory of Portugal until 1975, Angola possesses a Portuguese population of over 200,000, a number that |
has been growing from 2000 onwards, because of Angola's growing demand for qualified human resources. Currently, over 300,000 Angolans are white, 1 million Angolans are mixed race black and white and 50,000 Angolans are from China, which accounts for 1.35 million people. In 1974, white Angolans made up a population of 330,000 to 350,000 people in an overall population of 6.3 million Angolans at that time. The only reliable source on these numbers is Gerald Bender Stanley Yoder, Whites in Angola on the Eve of Independence The Politics of Numbers, Africa Today, 21 4 1974, pp. 23 37. Today, many Angolans who are not ethnic Portuguese can claim Portuguese nationality under Portuguese law. Estimates on the overall population are given in O Pas Besides the Portuguese, significant numbers of people from other European and from diverse Latin American countries especially Brazil can be found. From the 2000s, many Chinese have settled and started up small businesses, while at least as many have come as workers for l |
arge enterprises construction or other. Observers claim that the Chinese community in Angola might include as many as 300,000 persons at the end of 2010, but reliable statistics are not at this stage available. In 197475, over 25,000 Cuban soldiers arrived in Angola to help the MPLA forces at the beginning of the Angolan Civil War. Once this was over, a massive development cooperation in the field of health and education brought in numerous civil personnel from Cuba. However, only a very small percentage of all these people has remained in Angola, either for personal reasons intermarriage or as professionals e.g., medical doctors.
The largest religious denomination is Catholicism, to which adheres about half the population. Roughly 26 are followers of traditional forms of Protestantism Congregationals, Methodists, Baptista, Lutherans, Reformed, but over the last decades there has in addition been a growth of Pentecostal communities and African Initiated Churches. In 2006, one out of 221 people were Jehovah's |
Witnesses. Blacks from Mali, Nigeria and Senegal are mostly Sunnite Muslims, but do not make up more than 1 2 of the population. By now few Angolans retain African traditional religions following different ethnic faiths.
Population
According to the total population was in , compared to only 4 148 000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 46.6, 50.9 was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 2.5 was 65 years or older
.
Structure of the population DHS 2011 Males 19 707, Females 20 356 40 063
Vital statistics
Registration of vital events is in Angola not complete. The Population Department of the United Nations and the CIA World Factbook prepared the following estimates.
Fertility and Births
Total Fertility Rate TFR Wanted TFR and Crude Birth Rate CBR
Life expectancy
Other demographics statistics
Demographic statistics according to the World Population Review in 2019.
One birth every 25 seconds
One death every 2 minutes
One net migrant every Infinity minutes
Net gain |
of one person every 31 seconds
The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated.
Population
30,355,880 July 2018 est.
29,310,273 July 2017 est.
Age structure
014 years 48.07 male 7,257,155 female 7,336,084
1524 years 18.33 male 2,701,123 female 2,863,950
2554 years 27.95 male 4,044,944 female 4,441,028
5564 years 3.32 male 466,085 female 540,452
65 years and over 2.32 male 296,411 female 408,648 2018 est.
Median age
total 15.9 years. Country comparison to the world 224th
male 15.4 years
female 16.3 years 2018 est.
Population growth
3.49 2018 est. Country comparison to the world 2nd
The population is growing by 3.52 annually. There are 44.2 births and 9.2 deaths per 1,000 citizens. The net migration rate is 0.2 migrants per 1,000 citizens. The fertility rate of Angola is 6.16 children born per woman as of 2017. The infant mortality rate is 67.6 deaths for every 1,000 live births with 73.3 deaths for males and 61.8 deaths for females for every 1,000 live |
births. Life expectancy at birth is 60.2 years; 58.2 years for males and 62.3 years for females.
Total fertility rate
6.09 children bornwoman 2018 est. Country comparison to the world 2nd
Birth rate
43.7 births1,000 population 2018 est. Country comparison to the world 1st
Death rate
9 deaths1,000 population 2018 est. Country comparison to the world 60th
Net migration rate
0.2 migrants1,000 population 2017 est. Country comparison to the world 67th
Mother's mean age at first birth
19.4 years 201516 est.
note median age at first birth among women 2529
Life expectancy at birth
total population 60.6 years 2018 est. Country comparison to the world 207th
male 58.5 years 2018 est.
female 62.7 years 2018 est.
Contraceptive prevalence rate
57.1 201213
School life expectancy primary to tertiary education
total 10 years 2011
male 13 years 2011
female 8 years 2011
Sex ratio
At birth 1.05 malesfemale
Under 15 years 1.02 malesfemale
1564 years 1.03 malesfemale
65 years and older .79 malesfemale
Total population 1. |
02 malesfemale 2011 est.
Health
According to the CIA World Factbook, 2 of adults aged 1549 are living with HIVAIDS as of 2009. The risk of contracting disease is very high. There are food and waterborne diseases, bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever; vectorborne diseases, malaria, African trypanosomiasis sleeping sickness; respiratory disease meningococcal meningitis, and schistosomiasis, a water contact disease, as of 2005.
Ethnic groups
Roughly 37 of Angolans are Ovimbundu, 25 are Ambundu, 13 are Bakongo, 2 are mestio, 12 are white Africans, and people from other African ethnicities make up 22 of Angola's population.
Religions
Angola is a majority Christian country. Official statistics do not exist, however it is estimated that over 80 belong to a Christian church or community. More than half are Catholic, the remaining ones comprising members of traditional Protestant churches as well as of Pentecostal communities. Only 0.1 are Muslims generally immigrants from other Afr |
ican countries. Traditional indigenous religions are practiced by a very small minority, generally in peripheral rural societies.
Education
Literacy is quite low, with 71.1 of the population over the age of 15 able to read and write in Portuguese. 82 of males and 60.7 of women are literate as of 2015.
Languages
Portuguese is the official language of Angola, but Bantu and other African languages are also widely spoken. In fact, Kikongo, Kimbundu, Umbundu, Tuchokwe, Nganguela, and Ukanyama have the official status of "national languages". The mastery of Portuguese is widespread; in the cities the overwhelming majority are either fluent in Portuguese or have at least a reasonable working knowledge of this language; an increasing minority are native Portuguese speakers and have a poor, if any, knowledge of an African language.
References
2003
External links
Population cartogram of Angola
Angolan society |
The Angolan government is composed of three branches of government executive, legislative and judicial. For decades, political power has been concentrated in the presidency with the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola.
History
Since the adoption of a new constitution in 2010, the politics of Angola takes place in a framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Angola is both head of state and head of government, and of a multiparty system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the President, the government and parliament.
Angola changed from a oneparty MarxistLeninist system ruled by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola MPLA, in place since independence in 1975, to a multiparty democracy based on a new constitution adopted in 1992. That same year the first parliamentary and presidential elections were held. The MPLA won an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections. In the presidential elections, President Jos Eduardo |
dos Santos won the first round election with more than 49 of the vote to Jonas Savimbi's 40. A runoff election would have been necessary, but never took place. The renewal of civil war immediately after the elections, which were considered as fraudulent by UNITA, and the collapse of the Lusaka Protocol, created a split situation. To a certain degree the new democratic institutions worked, notably the National Assembly, with the active participation of UNITA's and the FNLA's elected MPs while Jos Eduardo dos Santos continued to exercise his functions without democratic legitimation. However the armed forces of the MPLA now the official armed forces of the Angolan state and of UNITA fought each other until the leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi, was killed in action in 2002.
From 2002 to 2010, the system as defined by the constitution of 1992 functioned in a relatively normal way. The executive branch of the government was composed of the President, the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers. The Council of Min |
isters, composed of all ministers and vice ministers, met regularly to discuss policy issues. Governors of the 18 provinces were appointed by and served at the pleasure of the president. The Constitutional Law of 1992 established the broad outlines of government structure and the rights and duties of citizens. The legal system was based on Portuguese and customary law but was weak and fragmented. Courts operated in only 12 of more than 140 municipalities. A Supreme Court served as the appellate tribunal; a Constitutional Court with powers of judicial review was never constituted despite statutory authorization. In practice, power was more and more concentrated in the hands of the President who, supported by an everincreasing staff, largely controlled parliament, government, and the judiciary.
The 26yearlong civil war has ravaged the country's political and social institutions. The UN estimates of 1.8 million internally displaced persons IDPs, while generally the accepted figure for waraffected people is 4 m |
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