tourism city

Mbuji-Mayi

Democratic Republic of the Congo · Africa

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135

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1.00

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Provincial capital and city in Kasai-Oriental, Democratic Republic of the Congo

About Mbuji-Mayi

Mbuji-Mayi is a city and the capital of Kasai-Oriental Province in the south-central Democratic Republic of Congo. It is thought to be the second largest city in the country, after the capital Kinshasa and ahead of Lubumbashi, Kisangani and Kananga, though its exact population is not known. Estimates range from a 2010 CIA World Factbook estimated population of 1,480,000 to as many as 3,500,000 estimated by the United Nations in 2008.

History

The region where the city of Mbuji-Mayi now stands was once a cluster of villages on land owned by the Bakwanga clan. Diamonds were first discovered in the area as early as 1907, but the true value of the find was not recognised until 1913. Following the discovery, a mining camp designed to house miners and company officials of the Societé minière de Bakwanga (MIBA) was developed in the area. The young city, known at the time as Bakwanga, grew quickly but around strict planning by MIBA, which divided the community into labor camps, mining areas and living quarters. The city's growth was not explosive, and planning was done with the needs of the mining company in mind, not the development of the region as a general population centre. …

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Culture and economy

As a commercial center, Mbuji-Mayi handles most diamond mining, panning, and production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Societé minière de Bakwanga and Diamant International are the major diamond producers in the area. The city had always been a major source of the world's diamonds and that did not change after independence, nor did the age-old tradition of diamond smuggling. But after independence, that ability of the government to control the diamond smuggling quickly eroded and diamond smuggling dramatically increased. The black market quickly eclipsed the official business, and in 1963, MIBA officially recorded producing 1.4 million karats of diamonds, while smugglers exported between 4 million and 6 million more karats. The city lacks much of the organization and classic European architecture that other major cities in the DRC inherited from the Belgian colonists. …