BurundiBurundi (bəˈrʊndi or bəˈrʌndi ), officially the Republic of Burundi (Repuburika y’Uburundi u.βu.ɾǔː.ndi; Jamuhuri ya Burundi; République du Burundi buʁundi, byʁyndi), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and East Africa. It is bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and southeast, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west; Lake Tanganyika lies along its southwestern border.
Bantu peoplesThe Bantu peoples are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct native African ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. The languages are native to 24 countries spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Southern Africa. There are several hundred Bantu languages. Depending on the definition of "language" or "dialect", it is estimated that there are between 440 and 680 distinct languages.
Demographics of BurundiDemographic features of the population of Burundi include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects. At 206.1 persons per km2, Burundi has the second-largest population density in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most people live on farms near areas of fertile volcanic soil. The population is made up of three major ethnic groups – Hutu (Bahutu), Tutsi (Batutsi or Watusi), and Twa (Batwa). Kirundi is the common language.
Democratic Republic of the CongoThe Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as Congo-Kinshasa and formerly known as Zaire, is a country in Central Africa. By land area, the DRC is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 112 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous officially Francophone country in the world. The national capital and largest city is Kinshasa, which is also the economic center.
History of RwandaHuman occupation of Rwanda is thought to have begun shortly after the last ice age. By the 11th century, the inhabitants had organized into a number of kingdoms. In the 19th century, Mwami (king) Rwabugiri of the Kingdom of Rwanda conducted a decades-long process of military conquest and administrative consolidation that resulted in the kingdom coming to control most of what is now Rwanda. The colonial powers, Germany and Belgium, allied with the Rwandan court.
HutuThe Hutu (ˈhuːtuː), also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or social group which is native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the principal ethnic groups alongside the Tutsi and the Great Lakes Twa. Demographics of Rwanda and Demographics of Burundi The Hutu is the largest of the three main population divisions in Burundi and Rwanda.
Rwandan RevolutionThe Rwandan Revolution, also known as the Hutu Revolution, Social Revolution, or Wind of Destruction (muyaga), was a period of ethnic violence in Rwanda from 1959 to 1961 between the Hutu and the Tutsi, two of the three ethnic groups in Rwanda. The revolution saw the country transition from a Tutsi monarchy under Belgian colonial authority to an independent Hutu-dominated republic. Rwanda had been ruled by a Tutsi monarchy since at least the 18th century, with entrenched pro-Tutsi and anti-Hutu policies.
Belgian colonial empireBelgium controlled several territories and concessions during the colonial era, principally the Belgian Congo (modern DRC) from 1908 to 1960, Ruanda-Urundi (modern Rwanda and Burundi) from 1922 to 1962, and Lado Enclave (modern Central Equatoria province in South Sudan) from 1884 to 1910. It also had small concessions in Guatemala (1843–1854) and Belgian concession of Tianjin in China (1902–1931) and was a co-administrator of the Tangier International Zone in Morocco.
Rwandan genocideThe Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsi deaths. In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed mostly of Tutsi refugees, invaded northern Rwanda from their base in Uganda, initiating the Rwandan Civil War.
UbuhakeUbuhake is the name given to the social order in Rwanda and Burundi from approximately the 15th century to 1958. It has been frequently compared to European feudalism. Based on cattle distribution, it was, however, a much smaller system than the one of uburetwa, which affected a much larger segment of the population and was based on land distribution. The Tutsi monarchy used the land distribution system of uburetwa to centralise control of the lands in most of Rwanda in a system called igikingi.
