Gabon | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Gabon

POPULATION 1,355,246
CHRISTIAN 90.6 percent
MUSLIM 4.6 percent
AFRICAN INDIGENOUS BELIEFS 3.1 percent
NONRELIGIOUS 1.1 percent
OTHER 0.6 percent

Country Overview

Introduction

The Gabonese Republic straddles the equator on the West African coast and is surrounded by Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, and the Atlantic Ocean. The land is heavily forested. Prior to French colonization, which began in the 1840s on the coast and expanded inland until the eve of World War I, Gabonese peoples (including Fang, Mbede, Punu, Eshira, Nzabi, Myene, Kota, Obamba, and Teke) hunted; fished; practiced shifting cultivation, iron metallurgy, and trade; and collected forest products. Rural populations continue to hunt, fish, and cultivate, as well as planting some cash crops (cocoa, coffee, hevea, market foodstuffs). Half of Gabon's population lives in two coastal cities, Libreville (the capital) and Port Gentil.

Before Christian missionaries arrived in the 1840s, inhabitants practiced a range of African religions, including ancestor religions and initiation societies. In the early twentieth century intense colonial exploitation, impoverishment, famine, and disease led to depopulation and social crisis, as well as widespread conversion to Christianity. During this time Catholic and Protestant mission churches and schools were established in most major towns. By evangelizing and educating several generations of Gabonese intellectuals and colonial and postcolonial administrators, the mission stations have played an important role in reshaping Gabonese society.

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