Equatorial Guinea

An island and a piece of mainland with little in common, holding oil wealth that has reached almost nobody. Fernando Po, now Bioko, was Portuguese and then leased to Britain as an anti-slavery base, which is why its creole Fernandino population spoke an English-based pidgin; Rio Muni on the mainland is Fang country and was claimed long before it was entered. Spain kept a small rectangle after conceding its wider claims to France in 1900. Cocoa grown on Bioko's volcanic soil was among the most productive in the world and was worked by contract labourers imported from Nigeria and Liberia under conditions that drew international complaint. Independence came in 1968 under Francisco Macias Nguema, whose rule was among the worst dictatorships of the century - perhaps a third of the population killed or driven into exile, schools closed, the word intellectual made dangerous - until his nephew Teodoro Obiang overthrew and executed him in 1979. Obiang has ruled ever since, the longest-serving head of state in the world. Offshore oil found in the 1990s gave the country one of the highest incomes per head in Africa on paper. Malabo is the capital, on the island. It is the only African state with Spanish as an official language. The country has about 1.7 million people. It is the smallest continental African state by area outside the Gambia. Its mainland and island are separated by Cameroonian and Gabonese waters. A new capital, Ciudad de la Paz, has been under construction in the interior since 2007. Portuguese and French are also official languages.

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