 But Leopold II emerged triumphant from the Berlin Conference and his single-shareholder "philanthropic" organization received a large share of territory () to be organized as the Congo Free State.The Congo Free State operated as a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II through a non-governmental organization, the "Association Internationale Africaine".The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908, when the government of Belgium reluctantly annexed the area.