Angola, officially the Republic of Angola is a country in south-central Africa bordering Namibia to the south, Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, and Zambia to the east, and with a west coast along the Atlantic Ocean. The exclave province Cabinda has a border with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Angola is a former Portuguese colony and has considerable natural resources, most notably petroleum and diamonds.

Civil war
When it was known that Portuguese authorities and military forces would leave the territory and hand over power to the nationalist groups, a mass exodus of civilian Portuguese citizens ensued. The Angolan Civil War (1975 - 2002), one of the largest and deadliest Cold War conflicts, erupted shortly after and lasted 27 years, ravaging the economy, disturbing social order and disrupting social stability in the newly independent country. Over 500,000 people lost their lives, mostly in the 1990s, as the three main factions and several smaller ones struggled for supremacy. Thousands of Angolan refugees suffered with the conflict and left the country or simply fled to other regions of Angola. Today, all parties to conflict are active politically, but the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola's (MPLA) victory in the war prevents any opposition candidate or ethnic group from challenging dos Santos and the Kimbundu’s "de facto " control of the country. The MPLA’s base is among the Kimbundu people and the multiracial intelligentsia of Luanda. The National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), based in the Bakongo region of the north, allied with the United States, the People's Republic of China and the Mobutu government in Zaïre. The United States, South Africa, and several other African nations also supported Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), whose ethnic and regional base lies in the Ovimbundu heartland of central Angola.

Angola is divided into eighteen provinces  and 163 municipalities. The provinces are:

1. Bengo
2. Benguela
3. Bié
4. Cabinda
5. Cuando Cubango
6. Cuanza Norte
7. Cuanza Sul
8. Cunene
9. Huambo

10. Huila
11. Luanda
12. Lunda Norte
13. Lunda Sul
14. Malanje
15. Moxico
16. Namibe
17. Uíge
18. Zaire

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angola

Contributed by: [alex]