Kingdom of Loango

The Kingdom of Loango was a pre-colonial state on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, in what is now the Republic of the Congo, southern Gabon and Cabinda. It was founded by Kongo peoples, probably in the sixteenth century, and grew into a powerful trading kingdom whose influence extended from Cape St Catherine in the north to the mouth of the Congo River. Its capital, also called Loango, lay near the coast and became a major entrepôt for cloth, copper, ivory, salt and enslaved people. Loango exported large quantities of raffia cloth and copper to European and African markets, and its rulers controlled the trade routes that linked the interior to the Atlantic. The kingdom was never conquered by a European power, but its commerce declined in the nineteenth century as the Atlantic slave trade ended and colonial boundaries were imposed. Loango was gradually absorbed into French Equatorial Africa, and its royal traditions survive among the Vili people of the Congolese coast.