Environment - international agreements:
party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered
Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone
Layer Protection, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: Environmental Modification
Geography - note:
straddles equator; has very narrow strip of land that controls the
lower Congo River and is only outlet to South Atlantic Ocean; dense
tropical rain forest in central river basin and eastern highlands
People Congo, Democratic Republic of the
Population:
62,660,551
note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the
effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower
life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower
population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of
population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July
2006 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 47.4% (male 14,906,488/female 14,798,210)
15-64 years: 50.1% (male 15,597,353/female 15,793,350)
65 years and over: 2.5% (male 632,143/female 933,007) (2006 est.)
Median age:
total: 16.2 years
male: 16 years
female: 16.4 years (2006 est.)
Population growth rate:
3.07% (2006 est.)
Birth rate:
43.69 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Death rate:
13.27 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Net migration rate:
0.23 migrant(s)/1,000 population
note: fighting between the Congolese Government and Uganda- and
Rwanda-backed Congolese rebels spawned a regional war in DRC in
August 1998, which left 2.33 million Congolese internally displaced
and caused 412,000 Congolese refugees to flee to surrounding
countries (2006 est.)