Angola – A Place

Summary

Continent: Africa

Population: 29,784,193 (2017 UN)

Literacy: 67.4% (Wikipedia)

Flag

Angola flag

Map

Angola map

Angola is officially the Republic of Angola. It is a country along the west coast of Middle or Southern Africa. It is located between Namibia and Democratic Republic of the Congo. It borders the South Atlantic Ocean. It also shares borders with the Republic of the Congo and Zambia.

Along the Atlantic coastline there is narrow coastal plain. This rises abruptly to vast interior plateau. Along the coast, the climate is semiarid to Luanda. The inland plateau to the north has a cool dry season from May to October and a hot rainy season from November to April.

History

Following the prehistoric hunter gatherers, the first people to live in what is now Angola were bushmen. However, they were forced out by farmers, Bantu, during the Bantu expansions.

In the first century, relatives of the Bantusprach family began to immigrate to Angola. Over the years, these newcomers established independent kingdoms. Probably the most important of these kingdoms was the Congo. From 1400 CE, northern parts of the area belonged to the great kingdom of Congo.

Angola got its name from another kingdom, the Ngola. At the end of the 15th century, Portuguese seafarers began exploring the country from the mouth of the Congo river. They established commercial settlements along the coast. Over time they converted the population to Christianity. They used this to establish strong trade relations. Angola became a Portuguese colony.

On 11 November 1975, Angola acceded to independence. This followed a war of liberation and a military coup in the then metropolis.

Modern Times

The population of Angola is now about 29 million people.

The official language, Portuguese (71.2%) is spoken by most of the population. Many other languages are also spoken. The most common of these are Umbundu (23%), Kikongo (8.2%), Kimbundu (7.8%), Chokwe (6.5%), Nhaneca (3.4%), Nganguela (3.1%), Fiote (2.4%), Kwanhama (2.3%), Luvale (1%), and Muhumbi (2.15%).

In terms of ethnicity, most of the people in Angola are Ovimbundu (37%). Other common ethnic groups include Kimbundu (25%), Bakongo (13%), Mestico (2%), and European (1%). Another 22% belong to other ethnic groups.

The majority religion is Roman Catholic (41.1%). There are also Protestant denominations (38.1%).

Genetics

This section is under development.

mtDNA

Genographic ProjectGeno 2.0 Data

Data from Geno 2.0 is derived from the The National Geographic Society’s Genographic Project — the DAR. The Hg ID is specific to this site and is used to protect the identities of those who take part in Genographic research. Birth Country, Mother's Birth Country, and Maternal Grandmother's Birth Country have been normalized from DAR database fields. The Maternal Origin is determined based on the three previous fields.

Note: Geno 2.0 results currently use Phylotree build 16. I am working on changing results over to build 17.

Hg IDHg Build 16Birth CountryMother's Birth CountryMaternal Grandmother's Birth Country
Hap10026350H1a3PortugalAngolaUnspecified
Hap10067190L1c2a1aAngolaAngolaAngola
Hap10067680L2a1c1a2ZambiaAngolaAngola
Hap10069261L3e2bAngolaAngolaAngola
1

Sources and Resources

Background

Journal Articles