%2C_Astley_1745.jpg/960px-The_Bansa%2C_or_residence_of_the_King_of_Kongo%2C_called_St._Salvador_(M'Banza_Kongo)%2C_Astley_1745.jpg)
M'banza-Kongo
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
Seals, want-to-go and the year you stood here are recorded in the iPhone app.
How it came to be
Around 1390 Lukeni, the first manikongo, or king, founded Mbanza Kongo on a plateau 570 metres high where trade routes met. From the 14th to the 19th century it was the political and spiritual capital of the Kingdom of Kongo, one of the largest states in southern Africa.
When the Portuguese arrived in the 15th century, stone buildings in European style were added to a town built of local materials, and from about 1570 it was called São Salvador. In 1608 the Pope received in Rome the first ambassador of a sub-Saharan African state, and in 1624 the first catechism in Kikongo was written at the Jesuit college.
After the battle of Mbwila in 1665 the city was sacked several times in civil wars and abandoned in 1678. King Pedro IV restored it as capital in 1709. The kingdom was abolished in 1915, and in 1976 the town took back the name Mbanza Kongo. It was inscribed in 2017.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).