Kinshasa (formerly Léopoldville or, before 1960, also Leopoldstad) is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing villages, Kinshasa is now a bustling city with a population of about 8.9 million (as of 2006),[1] it ties with Johannesburg for the status of the second largest city in sub-Saharan Africa, behind Lagos, and third largest in the whole continent, after Lagos and Cairo. Kinshasa is the second largest agglomeration for a French-speaking country in the world, after Paris and before Montreal. Demography obliges, Kinshasa should exceed Paris in some years, becoming the biggest agglomeration of a French-speaking country of any merged continents.
Kinshasa is a city of sharp contrasts, with affluent residential and commercial areas, three universities, and sprawling slums coexisting side by side.
It is located along the southern bank of the Congo River, directly opposite the city of Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo. This is the only place in the world where two national capital cities are on opposite banks of a river, in sight of each other. The Congo river is the second longest river in Africa after The Nile, it provides transportation for much of the region and is an important source of hydroelectric power. The estimated hydroelectric potential for the Congo Basin has the capacity to provide electrical power to the entire African continent.
Kinshasa is located at 4°16′S, 15°17′E.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinshasa
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