Ubangi River in the context of Stream capture

The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south, the Republic of the Congo to the southwest, and Cameroon to the west. Bangui is the country's capital and largest city, bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Central African Republic covers a land area of about 620,000 square kilometres (240,000 sq mi). As of 2024, it has a population of 5,357,744, consisting of about 80 ethnic groups, and is in the scene of a civil war, which has been ongoing since 2012. Having been a French colony under the name Ubangi-Shari, French is the official language, with Sango, a Ngbandi-based creole language, as the national and co-official language.

The Central African Republic mainly consists of Sudano-Guinean savanna, but the country also includes a Sahelo-Sudanian zone in the north and an equatorial forest zone in the south. Two-thirds of the country is within the Ubangi River basin (which flows into the Congo), while the remaining third lies in the basin of the Chari, which flows into Lake Chad.

Bangui (French pronunciation: [bɑ̃ɡi]; or Bangî in Sango, formerly written Bangi in English) is the capital and largest city of the Central African Republic. It was established as a French outpost in 1889 and named after its location on the northern bank of the Ubangi River (French: Oubangui); the Ubangi itself was named from the Bobangi word for the "rapids" located beside the settlement, which marked the end of navigable water north from Brazzaville. The majority of the population of the Central African Republic lives in the western parts of the country, in Bangui and the surrounding area.

The city has been part of Bangui Prefecture since December 2020. As of 2020 it had an estimated population of 889,231.

7°N 20°E / 7°N 20°E / 7; 20

Ubangi-Shari (French: Oubangui-Chari) was a French colony in central Africa, a part of French Equatorial Africa. It was named after the Ubangi and Chari rivers along which it was colonised.

Sango (also spelled Sangho) is a major language spoken in Central Africa, especially the Central African Republic, southern Chad and Democratic Republic of the Congo. The primary language of the Sango people (or Basango, Bosango, Sangho, Sangos), it is an official language in the Central African Republic, where it is used as a lingua franca across the country. Although there are no statistics to quantify people who speak it as a first versus second language, almost all 5,500,000 people in the Central African Republic speak it as of 2025.

Sango is a language with contested classification, with some linguists considering it a Ngbandi-based creole, while others argue that the changes in Sango structures can be explained without a creolization process. It has many French loanwords, but its structure remains wholly Ngbandi. Sango was used as a lingua franca for trade along the Ubangi River before French colonisation in the late 1800s and has since expanded as an interethnic communication language. In colloquial speech, almost all of the language's vocabulary is Ngbandi-based, whereas in more technical speech French loanwords constitute the majority. Sango has three distinct sociolinguistic norms: an urban "radio" variety, a "pastor" variety, and a "functionary" variety spoken by learned people who make the highest use of French loanwords.

Aka, also known as Yaka or Beka, is a Bantu language spoken in the Central African Republic and Republic of Congo, along the Ubangi River dividing the two countries.

Aka is spoken by the Aka people, pygmies closely related to the Ubangian-speaking Baka of Cameroon, Congo and Gabon. Together, these peoples are known as the Mbenga (Bambenga) or Binga (Babinga), the latter derogatory.

The Dongo conflict was a minor conflict centered in the town of Dongo, on the left bank of the Ubangi River in Sud-Ubangi District, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Violence initially broke out in late October 2009 after a local dispute over fishing rights. This destabilised the region and led to a spiral of violence, and an exodus of civilians attempting to flee from the fighting. By December 2009, this conflict was one of the biggest conflicts of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) and the United Nations; more than 168,000 people had fled their homes, many of them crossing into the neighbouring Republic of the Congo. An intervention by the Congolese army and MONUC brought the conflict to an end by 13 December 2009.

The Bangi language, or Bobangi, is a relative and main lexical source of Lingala spoken in central Africa. Dialects of the language are spoken on both sides of the Ubangi and the Congo rivers.

The Sango people (or Basango, Bosango, Sangho, Sangos) are an ethnic group living on the banks of the Ubangi River in the Central African Republic. They speak a Northern Ngbandi-based creole language called Sango, which belongs to the Ubangian branch of the Niger-Congo family.

The Ngbandi are an ethnic group from the region of the upper Ubangi River; they inhabit the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and southern Central African Republic. They traditionally speak the Ngbandi language, which is part of the Ubangian language family. Historically the Ngbandi were subsistence farmers, and many still grow maize, manioc, and other food crops. Until recently, some of their subsistence depended on traditional hunting and gathering.

They were once known as warriors, and some of the most prized African knives and lances were made by their craftsmen. This culture and others of Sudan had close connections, as expressed by shared usage of a musical instrument, a kind of harp, whose form is distinctive to this area.

The Mbomou River or Bomu (also spelled M'bomou in French) forms part of the boundary between the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The Mbomou merges with the Uele River to form the Ubangi River. The Ubangi, a tributary of the Congo, also serves as part of the border between the CAR and the DRC.