Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Kinshasa |
KinshasaNoun1. The capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the Congo river opposite Brazzaville. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Synonym: KinshasaSynonym: Leopoldville (n). (additional references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With a population of about 4.5 million, it is also one of the largest cities in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a city of sharp contrasts, with posh residential and commercial areas, two universities, and sprawling slums coexisting side by side.
Kinshasa is located along the southern bank of the Congo River, directly opposite the city of Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo. It was founded as a trading post by Henry Morton Stanley in 1881 and named Léopoldville in honor of King Léopold II of Belgium, who ruled the vast territory that is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The post flourished as the last navigable port along the Congo River before Livingston Falls: at first, all goods reaching Léopoldville would have to be carried by porter to the port of Matadi along the coast. The completion of a railroad in 1898 provided a viable means of transportation along the river’s lower reaches and sparked the rapid development of Kinshasa. By 1920, the city was elevated to capital of the Belgian Congo, replacing the seaside town of Boma.
In 1965 Mobutu Sese Seko seized power in the Congo in his second coup and initiated a policy of “Africanizing” the names of people and places in the country. In 1966 Léopoldville was renamed Kinshasa for a village that once stood near the site. The city grew rapidly under Mobutu, drawing people from across the country who came in search of their fortunes or to escape ethnic strife elsewhere. This inevitably brought about a change to the city’s ethnic and linguistic composition as well. Although it is situated in territory that traditionally belongs to the Bakongo people, the lingua franca in Kinshasa today is not Kikongo but Lingala.
Kinshasa suffered greatly due to Mobutu’s excesses and the civil war that led to his downfall. Nevertheless, it is still a major cultural and intellectual center, with a flourishing community of musicians and artists. It is also the country’s major industrial center, processing many of the natural products brought from the interior. The city has recently had to fend off rioting soldiers who were protesting the government’s inability to pay them.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Kinshasa."
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | The Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR - formerly Zaire and Congo Kinshasa) is Africa's third largest country after Sudan and Algeria. (references) | |
Children | Congo | Street children in Kinshasa were subject to severe harassment and exploitation, particularly by soldiers and police. (references) |
Congo | Public sentiment for the most part rested with the police, since the Kinshasa population is distrustful of street children. (references) | |
Congo | The Juvenile Code includes a statute prohibiting prostitution by children under the age of 14; however, child prostitution is common in Kinshasa and in other parts of the country. (references) | |
Civil Liberties | Congo | Humanitarian shipments between Kinshasa and rebel-held Kisangani resumed by river in August. (references) |
Central African Republic | However, the Government worked with the UNHCR office in Kinshasa, DRC, to assist the thousands of refugees. (references) | |
Congo | Although approximately 400 newspapers were licensed to publish, no more than 30 appeared regularly in Kinshasa. (references) | |
Economic History | Democratic Republic of Congo | Administrative subdivisions: Ten provinces and the capital city, Kinshasa. (references) |
Democratic Republic of Congo | This prompted army mutinies in Kinshasa and the Kivu provinces in the east. (references) | |
Republic of Congo | Its mailing address is Brazzaville Embassy Office, c/o American Embassy Kinshasa, Box 31550, APO AE 09828. (references) | |
Human Rights | Congo | On February 6, Placide Nkoso, a University of Kinshasa student arrested in July 2000, was released. (references) |
Congo | On November 30, four soldiers in an unmarked vehicle followed a Belgian couple to their home in the Binza neighborhood of Kinshasa. (references) | |
Congo | Six FAC soldiers reportedly were executed in Kinshasa during the year; however, no information was available on their identities or the charges against them. (references) | |
Political Economy | Central African Republic | While the civil war in the DRC prevented shipping on the Ubangui River in 2000, barge traffic from Kinshasa, DRC, resumed in September. (references) |
Congo | Joseph Kabila also allowed the U.N. International Facilitator, former Botswana Prime Minister Sir Ketumile Masire, who was selected by the signatories of the Lusaka Accords, to return to Kinshasa to prepare the Inter-Congolese Dialogue (ICD). (references) | |
Political Rights | Congo | Territorial administrators also were appointed from Kinshasa. (references) |
Worker Rights | Congo | Between August 28 and 31, nurses and paramedics at public hospitals in Kinshasa went on strike to protest deteriorating salaries and poor working conditions; no resolution was reached. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Kinshasa" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Kinshasa" is used about 43 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 100% | 43 | 52,181 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "Kinshasa": Kinshasa-gombe. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
kinshasa | 66 |
congo democratic kinshasa republic | 53 |
congo kinshasa | 44 |
kinshasa hotel | 10 |
kinshasa photo | 5 |
kinshasa map | 5 |
kinshasa picture | 4 |
kinshasa proxy | 4 |
american kinshasa school | 3 |
1991 kinshasa | 3 |
kinshasa zaire | 2 |
congo from kinshasa news | 2 |
congo hosting kinshasa web | 2 |
billboard kinshasa | 2 |
avion billet d kinshasa | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "Kinshasa"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||
Albanian | Kinshasë. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | Киншаса. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | inshasakay Киншаса. (various references) kinšasa. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Kinshasa" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Inshas, Kinchasa, Kinshasha, Pinhasi. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-h-i-k-n-s-s" | |
-2 letters: hansas, kashas, shanks, shiksa. | |
-3 letters: ankhs, assai, haika, haiks, hanks, hansa, kains, kanas, kasha, khans, kinas, knish, sains, sakis, sasin, shank, shins, sinhs, sinks, skins, snash. | |
-4 letters: aahs, ains, akin, anas, anis, ankh, ansa, asks, haik, hank, hins, hisn, hiss, inks, kaas, kain, kana, khan, khis, kina, kins, kiss, sain, saki, sank, sans. | |
-5 letters: aah. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-h-i-k-n-s-s" | |
+4 letters: handshakings, marksmanship. | |
+5 letters: marksmanships, phrasemakings. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4B 69 6E 73 68 61 73 61 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-.- .. -. ... .... .- ... .- |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001011 01101001 01101110 01110011 01101000 01100001 01110011 01100001 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)K i n s h a s a |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004B 0069 006E 0073 0068 0061 0073 0061 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)4575808574678567 |
| Language | Coverage | Language Translations |
Albanian | fjalor, qartësi, përcaktim, saktësi, transmetim, transferim | shqip, албанец, албански език, албански, албанский, albanski, albanac |
Bulgarian | речник, яснота, сила, очертания, дефиниция, транслация, превеждане, предаване, поддаване, тълкуване, огъване, превод | bulgr, български, български език, българин, болгарский, болгарин, bugarski jezik, bugarski, bugarka, bugarin |
Russian | словарь, определение, трансляция, сдвиг, перевод, перемещение | руски език, руски, руснак, русский, ruski jezik, ruski |
Serbo-Croatian | leksikon, rečnik, definicija, tumačenje | srpsko-hrvatski jezik, srpsko-hrvatski |
English | Dictionary, Definition, Translation | anglezët, anglez, gjuhë zngleze, anglishte, anglisht, английски език, английски, англичаните, английский, engleski, englez, engleski jezik |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Quotations: Non-fiction | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Cities 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Derivations 11. Anagrams 12. Orthography | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
