Our theme music and other stings come from Thomas O’Boyle Some great examples of ancient ancestral Gabonese art can be found here. Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly in Dublin, Ireland, Mark Boyle in the UK, and Joe Byrne in Galway, Ireland. Gabon is one of the most prosperous countries on the continent, with the fifth highest GDP per capita in all of Africa, while almost 85% of Gabon is covered by rainforests, 11% of which has been dedicated for national parks. The official language is French, although many Gabonese people speak various mother tongues according to their ethnic group, of which there are over 40. Gabon is home to just over 2.1 million people, with the vast majority of those being in Libreville, the largest city and capital, lying on the Komo River, near the Gulf of Guinea.

Gabon is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo on the east and south. Gabon has a total land area of around 257,000 square km or just under 100,000 square miles, making it around the same size as the UK, New Zealand or the US state of Oregon. Since then, the politics of the country has been dominated by Omar Bongo, Gabon’s second president, and his son Ali Bongo, who succeeded him in 2009. In 1910, Gabon became one of the four territories of French Equatorial Africa, and fifty years later became fully independent. Local inhabitants began to sell slaves to Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries, which established the region as a hub for the slave trade. Originally inhabited by Bantu tribes, the area we now know as Gabon was first explored by Europeans in the 15th Century.

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Gabon, officially the Gabonese Republic, an equatorial country on the west coast of Africa. Lapland (Christmas Special) Season 1 (2016-17) Minisode: Natal, 1497 | Minisode: Runnymede, 1215 | Minisode: Hong Kong Invasion, 1941 Season 2 (2017)

Minisode: Swiss Exclaves | Minisode: Apollo 8 (Christmas Special) | Minisode: Christmas Stories 2020 | Season 3 (2018-19) Click on the links below to find an episode you like, scroll down to see episode show notes, news and announcements and if you like what you hear, subscribe or sign up to support us on Patreon! Every episode we take you to a little-known country, territory, settlement or city and explore the history, culture and people of each place over approximately an hour and a half. Welcome to 80 Days: an exploration podcast, brought to you by three history and geography nerds in an internet-powered balloon.

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