Early history Megaliths, pictured here on a 1967 Central African stamp, date back to the very late Neolithic Era (). Approximately 10,000 years ago,
desertification forced
hunter-gatherer societies south into the Sahel regions of northern Central Africa, where some groups settled. Farming began as part of the
Neolithic Revolution. Initial farming of
white yam progressed into
millet and
sorghum, and before 3000BCE the domestication of
African oil palm improved the groups' nutrition and allowed for expansion of the local populations. This agricultural revolution, combined with a "Fish-stew Revolution", in which fishing began to take place and the use of boats, allowed for the transportation of goods. Products were often moved in
ceramic pots. The
Bouar Megaliths in the western region of the country indicate an advanced level of habitation dating back to the very late
Neolithic Era ().
Ironwork developed in the region around 1000BCE. The
Ubangian people settled along the
Ubangi River in what is today the Central and East Central African Republic while some
Bantu people migrated from the southwest of
Cameroon.
Bananas arrived in the region during the first millennium BCE and added an important source of carbohydrates to the diet; they were also used in the production of
alcoholic beverages. Production of
copper,
salt,
dried fish, and
textiles dominated the economic trade in the Central African region.
16th–19th century and his wives, 1906 In the 16th and 17th centuries,
slave traders began to raid the region as part of the expansion of the Saharan and Nile River slave routes. Their captives were enslaved and shipped to the Mediterranean coast, Europe, Arabia, the Western Hemisphere, or to the slave ports and factories along the West and North Africa or South along the Ubangui and Congo rivers. During the 18th century Bandia-Nzakara
Azande peoples established the
Bangassou Kingdom along the
Ubangi River. In 1875, the
Sudanese sultan
Rabih az-Zubayr governed Upper-Oubangui, which included present-day Central African Republic.
French colonial period The European invasion of Central African territory began in the late 19th century during the
Scramble for Africa. Europeans, primarily the French,
Germans, and
Belgians, arrived in the area in 1885. France seized and colonized
Ubangi-Shari territory in 1894. In 1911 at the
Treaty of Fez, France ceded a nearly 300,000 km2 portion of the Sangha and Lobaye basins to the
German Empire which ceded a smaller area (in present-day
Chad) to France. After
World War I France again annexed the territory. Modeled on
King Leopold's
Congo Free State, concessions were doled out to private companies that endeavored to strip the region's assets as quickly and cheaply as possible before depositing a percentage of their profits into the French treasury. The concessionary companies
forced local people to harvest rubber, coffee, and other commodities without pay and held their families hostage until they met their quotas. in Bangui, 1940 In 1920,
French Equatorial Africa was established and Ubangi-Shari was administered from
Brazzaville. During the 1920s and 1930s the French introduced a policy of mandatory cotton cultivation, New forms of forced labour were also introduced and a large number of Ubangians were sent to work on the
Congo-Ocean Railway. Through the period of construction until 1934 there was a continual heavy cost in human lives, with total deaths among all workers along the railway estimated in excess of 17,000 of the construction workers, from a combination of both industrial accidents and diseases including
malaria. In 1928, a major insurrection, the
Kongo-Wara rebellion or 'war of the hoe handle', broke out in Western Ubangi-Shari and continued for several years. The extent of this insurrection, which was perhaps the largest anti-colonial rebellion in Africa during the interwar years, was carefully hidden from the French public because it provided evidence of strong opposition to French colonial rule and forced labour. French colonization in Oubangui-Chari is considered to be the most brutal of the French colonial Empire. In September 1940, during the
Second World War,
pro-Gaullist French officers took control of Ubangi-Shari and
General Leclerc established his headquarters for the
Free French Forces in
Bangui. In 1946
Barthélemy Boganda was elected with 9,000 votes to the
French National Assembly, becoming the first representative of the Central African Republic in the French government. Boganda maintained a political stance against racism and the colonial regime but gradually became disheartened with the French political system and returned to the Central African Republic to establish the
Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa (''Mouvement pour l'évolution sociale de l'Afrique noire'', MESAN) in 1950. and won every legislative seat, which led to Boganda being elected president of the Grand Council of
French Equatorial Africa and vice-president of the Ubangi-Shari Government Council. Within a year, he declared the establishment of the Central African Republic and served as the country's first prime minister. MESAN continued to exist, but its role was limited. The Central African Republic was granted autonomy within the French Community on 1 December 1958, a status which meant it was still counted as part of the French Empire in Africa. After Boganda's death in a
plane crash on 29 March 1959, his cousin,
David Dacko, took control of MESAN. Dacko became the country's first president when the Central African Republic formally received
independence from France at midnight on 13 August 1960, a date celebrated by the country's
Independence Day holiday. Dacko threw out his political rivals, including
Abel Goumba, former Prime Minister and leader of
Mouvement d'évolution démocratique de l'Afrique centrale (MEDAC), whom he forced into exile in France. With all opposition parties suppressed by November 1962, Dacko declared MESAN as the official party of the state.
Bokassa and the Central African Empire (1965–1979) , self-crowned
Emperor of Central Africa In September 1979,
France overthrew Bokassa and restored Dacko to power (subsequently restoring the official name of the country and the original government to the Central African Republic). Dacko, in turn, was again overthrown in a
coup by General
André Kolingba on 1 September 1981.
Central African Republic under Kolingba Kolingba suspended the constitution and ruled with a
military junta until 1985. He introduced a new constitution in 1986 which was adopted by a nationwide referendum. Membership in his new party, the
Rassemblement Démocratique Centrafricain (RDC), was voluntary. In 1987 and 1988, semi-free elections to parliament were held, but Kolingba's two major political opponents,
Abel Goumba and
Ange-Félix Patassé, were not allowed to participate. By 1990, inspired by the
fall of the Berlin Wall, a pro-democracy movement arose. Pressure from the United States, France, and from a group of locally represented countries and agencies called GIBAFOR (France, the US, Germany, Japan, the EU, the
World Bank, and the
United Nations) finally led Kolingba to agree, in principle, to hold free elections in October 1992 with help from the UN Office of Electoral Affairs. After using the excuse of alleged irregularities to suspend the results of the elections as a pretext for holding on to power, President Kolingba came under intense pressure from GIBAFOR to establish a "Conseil National Politique Provisoire de la République" (Provisional National Political Council, CNPPR) and to set up a "Mixed Electoral Commission", which included representatives from all political parties. On 28 May 2001, rebels stormed strategic buildings in Bangui in an
unsuccessful coup attempt. The army chief of staff, Abel Abrou, and General François N'Djadder Bedaya were killed, but Patassé regained the upper hand by bringing in at least 300 troops of the
Congolese rebel leader
Jean-Pierre Bemba and Libyan soldiers. In the aftermath of the
failed coup, militias loyal to Patassé sought revenge against rebels in many neighborhoods of
Bangui and incited unrest including the murder of many political opponents. Eventually, Patassé came to suspect that General
François Bozizé was involved in another coup attempt against him, which led Bozizé to flee with loyal troops to Chad. In March 2003, Bozizé launched a surprise attack against Patassé, who was out of the country. Libyan troops and some 1,000 soldiers of Bemba's Congolese rebel organization failed to stop the rebels and Bozizé's forces succeeded in overthrowing Patassé.
Civil wars François Bozizé suspended the constitution and named a new cabinet, which included most opposition parties.
Abel Goumba was named vice-president. Bozizé established a broad-based National Transition Council to draft a new constitution, and announced that he would step down and run for office once the new constitution was approved. In 2004, the
Central African Republic Bush War began as forces opposed to Bozizé took up arms against his government. In May 2005, Bozizé won the presidential election, which excluded Patassé, and in 2006 fighting continued between the government and the rebels. In November 2006, Bozizé's government requested French military support to help them repel rebels who had taken control of towns in the country's northern regions. Though the initial public details of the agreement pertained to logistics and intelligence, by December the French assistance included airstrikes by
Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters against rebel positions. The Syrte Agreement in February and the Birao Peace Agreement in April 2007 called for a cessation of hostilities, the billeting of
FDPC fighters and their integration with FACA, the liberation of political prisoners, the integration of FDPC into government, an amnesty for the
UFDR, its recognition as a political party, and the integration of its fighters into the national army. Several groups continued to fight but other groups signed on to the agreement or similar agreements with the government (e.g., UFR on 15 December 2008). The only major group not to sign an agreement at the time was the
CPJP, which continued its activities and signed a peace agreement with the government on 25 August 2012. In 2011, Bozizé was reelected in an election which was widely considered fraudulent. s of the fighting in the Central African Republic, January 2014
Michel Djotodia took over as president. Prime Minister
Nicolas Tiangaye requested a
UN peacekeeping force from the
UN Security Council and on 31 May former President Bozizé was indicted for crimes against humanity and incitement to genocide. By the end of the year, there were international warnings of a "genocide" and fighting was largely reprisal attacks on civilians by Seleka's predominantly Muslim fighters and Christian militias called "
anti-balaka". On 18 February 2014,
United Nations Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon called on the
UN Security Council to immediately deploy 3,000 troops to the country, bolstering the 6,000 African Union soldiers and 2,000 French troops already in the country, to combat civilians being murdered in large numbers. The
Séléka government was said to be divided, and in September 2013, Djotodia officially disbanded Seleka, but many rebels refused to disarm, becoming known as ex-Seleka, and veered further out of government control. It is argued that the focus of the initial disarmament efforts exclusively on the Seleka inadvertently handed the anti-Balaka the upper hand, leading to the forced displacement of Muslim civilians by anti-Balaka in Bangui and western Central African Republic.
Catherine Samba-Panza was elected interim president by the National Transitional Council, becoming the first ever female Central African president. On 23 July 2014, following Congolese mediation efforts, Séléka and anti-balaka representatives signed a ceasefire agreement in
Brazzaville. By the end of 2014, the country was de facto partitioned with the anti-Balaka in the southwest and ex-Seleka in the northeast. On 14 December 2015, Séléka rebel leaders declared an independent
Republic of Logone.
Touadéra government (2016–present) Presidential elections were held in December 2015. As no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, a second round of elections was held on 14 February 2016 with run-offs on 31 March 2016. In the second round of voting, former Prime Minister
Faustin-Archange Touadéra was declared the winner with 63% of the vote, defeating
Union for Central African Renewal candidate
Anicet-Georges Dologuélé, another former Prime Minister. While the elections suffered from many potential voters being absent as they had taken refuge in other countries, the fears of widespread violence were ultimately unfounded, and the
African Union regarded the elections as successful. Touadéra was sworn in on 30 March 2016. No representatives of the Seleka rebel group or the "anti-balaka" militias were included in the subsequently formed government.
Presidential elections were held on 27 December 2020. Former president
François Bozizé announced his candidacy but was rejected by the Constitutional Court of the country, which held that Bozizé did not satisfy the "good morality" requirement for candidates because of an international warrant and
United Nations sanctions against him for alleged assassinations, torture and other crimes. As large parts of the country were at the time controlled by armed groups, the election could not be conducted in many areas of the country. Some 800 of the country's polling stations, or 14% of the total, were closed due to violence. Three
Burundian peacekeepers were killed and an additional two were wounded during the run-up to the election. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra was reelected. Russian mercenaries from the
Wagner Group have supported President Touadéra in the fight against rebels. Russia's Wagner group has been accused of harassing and intimidating civilians. In December 2022,
Roger Cohen wrote in
The New York Times that "
Wagner shock troops form a Praetorian Guard for Mr. Touadéra, who is also protected by Rwandan forces, in return for an untaxed license to exploit and export the Central African Republic's resources" and "one Western ambassador called the Central African Republic...a 'vassal state' of the Kremlin." Although the constitution initially limited presidency to two terms, Touadéra abolished constitutional term limits through a controversial referendum in 2023. He was reelected for a third term in December 2025. == Geography ==