Kasai River in the context of "Kasai region"

Kwango is a province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is one of the 21 provinces created in the 2015 repartitioning. Kwango, Kwilu, and Mai-Ndombe provinces are the result of the dismemberment of the former Bandundu province. Kwango was formed from the Kwango district whose town of Kenge was made the provincial capital and thus gained city status.

The province takes its name from the Kwango River, a tributary of the Kasai River that defines part of the international boundary between the DRC and Angola.

The Cuango or Kwango (Portuguese: Rio Cuango; French: Rivière Kwango; Dutch: Kwango Rivier) is a transboundary river of Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo. It is the largest left bank tributary of the Kasai River in the Congo River basin. It flows through Malanje in Angola. The Kwango River basin has large resources of diamonds in the Chitamba-Lulo Kimberlite Cluster in Lunda Norte Province, discovered in the main river channel and on flats and terraces in its flood plains. In the 19th century, the Kwango River was also called the Quango, especially in the works of explorer David Livingstone.

The Boma Kingdom, Ibar, or Giribuma was a polity in the Congo Basin of the Boma people, around Lake Mai-Ndombe. It split from Mwene Muji in the early-17th century, with tradition holding its founder as Maluma Bieme. It maintained close relations with the Tio Kingdom. In the 1640s, the Boma Kingdom was said to control fifteen "kings" and to be one of the "mightiest kingdoms in Africa". By the end of the 19th century, Boma surpassed Mwene Muji to become the major power in the Lower Kasai region.

According to tradition, the Ngeliboma (Boma king) was elected by the spirits. The Ngeliboma embodied divine virtues and surrounded himself with a royal court. He had to be a mage to become the chief of the community, however he could not remove any village chiefs. Villages north of Lake Mai-Ndombe were run by councils of elders. The Ngeli became the dominant class of the kingdom. They could only marry the Nkumu class, also located in the elite of the kingdom. Free men could also marry the Nkumu, but never the Ngeli. They traded ivory, wood and slaves.