Angola

Geography Guy · 987504. Tue Apr 09, 2013 5:16 am

Angola is a squarish-shaped country on Southern Africa's Atlantic coast. It borders Namibia, the Dem. Rep. of Congo and Zambia, and was a long-time colony of the Portuguese Empire (400 years until independence in 1975). Portuguese is still the main language for the 18.5 million Angolans, many of whom live in the bustling hub and capital city of Luanda, population over 5 million.
Life expectancy is around 50 years, due to sub-standard health conditions, and a huge wealth gap exists between few mineral- and oil-rich business magnates, and many poorer Angolan villagers.
The national bird is the Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens) pictured below, found throughout the Atlantic coastline. Its comically large red throat pouch is inflated during the mating season to attract females and supposedly scare off predators.

Zebra57 · 987734. Tue Apr 09, 2013 6:32 pm

Angola also borders the other Congo (ex French Congo) from its oil rich detached province of Cabinda. This territory was originally called Portuguese Congo and has at times attempted to break away from the rest of Angola.

CB27 · 987740. Tue Apr 09, 2013 7:47 pm

Qi is that there are several places in the US called Angola, including an infamous prison, all named after th country.

Geography Guy · 987743. Tue Apr 09, 2013 7:57 pm

The Louisiana State Penitentiary, or "the Alcatraz of the South", is located in Angola. Angola, Louisiana, near the Mississippi border.
And there are cities called Angola in Delaware, Kansas, Indiana, and New York, named as such for a large Angolan slave population, support for missionary efforts in the Portuguese colony, or possibly someone liking the sound of the name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angola_%28disambiguation%29

Zebra57 · 987877. Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:04 am

QI is the role reversal currently taking place between oil-rich Angola and cash-strapped Portugal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/16/portuguese-exodus-angola-el-dorado

Alfred E Neuman · 988393. Fri Apr 12, 2013 4:39 am

Angola is on the fairly short list of countries that I have visited, although you'll not find any reference to it in my passport, due to the fact that we weren't carrying passports at the time. In fact we weren't carrying anything at all, and were wearing only standard issue PT shorts, as we'd just swum across the Kavango river from the then South West Africa (now Namibia). We did it purely so that we could say that we'd been there.

Luckily it was a slow day crocodile-wise or we may not have made it back intact. It was also a slow day for SWAPO, otherwise we may not have made it back at all. The tiger fishing in the Kavango was always pretty good though, and the sunsets were amazing, so it wasn't a bad place to be.