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Inhabitants (December 17th, 1996)

During the time of Slave trade, many of the inhabitants were sold and sent away as slaves.
Into the vacuum after that, people from around the country immigrated, so the history of the people of this country is not so long.
Among the population, around 3 millions, the main race is Bantu, and the rest consists of 150 thousand Arab merchants, 20 thousand Pygmies and 20 thousand Mbororo (ancient Arab nomads). There are several thousand Whites in addition.

<Family eating cassava>

The official language is French, but people use Bantu language called Sango as a spoken language. Almost all Bantu people use this language and other tribes also use it. So this language is now the actual common language.

The people of Bantu tribes, living in rural, areas practice mainly farming for a living and eat Cassava as a staple food. They take almost all calories from this food. Cassava is a sort of taro called manioc in French, and like a kind of a sugar beet. The starch made from it by refining is tapioca. Their houses are made of dried bricks of laterite with a thatched roof.

<Pygmy family>

Pygmy tribes live in the southern rain forest areas near the border with Congo. They make simple houses with grass and live there for a while, then move, and repeat this. They live almost naked still now in a forest.

Today, more and more people practice farming because of the government's policy to encourage a settlement, but most people still live in a jungle, hunting and collecting plants.

<Mbororo ladys>

Unlike Pygmy people, Mbororo people build simple houses with roofs made of reeds and live. They led a nomadic life with cattle and sheep, so they would not accept the government policy to encourage a settlement. They have settled down, however, more and more recently.
Now most of them have got their pastures and leave their animals to graze there. Most of them began to build houses like Bantu's and live there.

Bantu tribes and other tribes have different living areas and different means of living, so usually their interests don't clash, and there almost have been no feuds so far between them.

This country is one of the poorest ones in the world, but it seems that it has never suffered from hunger so far. Almost all people are poor, but the self-sufficiency rate in food is higher than in Japan, and the country is able to be nearly self-sufficient. What's more, the country is rich in natural fruits and has a low population density, so the people have too many mangos for them when they are in season.

<Bantu children>	<Mango tree>	<Mango flower>

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