Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kinshasa
On 3 April 1919, it was renamed the Apostolic Vicariate of Léopoldville. It lost territory several times more: to establish the "Mission sui juris" of Bikoro on 3 January 1931, the Apostolic Vicariate of Boma on 26 February 1934, the Apostolic Prefecture of Kole on 14 June 1951, and the Apostolic Vicariate of Inongo on 29 June 1953. It was elevated on 10 November 1959 as the Archdiocese of Léopoldville, when the city was soon to become the national capital of the newly-independent Republic of the Congo. It was renamed the Archdiocese of Kinshasa on 30 May 1966, when the city's name was changed from Léopoldville to Kinshasa. The archdiocese was visited by Pope John Paul II in May 1980 and again in August 1985.
The Archdiocese of Kinshasa is the metropolitan archdiocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of Kinshasa, which includes the following suffragan dioceses:
History of the Republic of the Congo
From the capital they ruled over an empire encompassing large parts of present-day Angola, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They ruled over nearby tributary states, often by appointing sons of the Kongo kings to head these states. It had six so-called provinces called Mbemba, Soyo, Mbamba, Mbata, Nsundi and Mpangu. With the Kingdom of Loango in the north and the Kingdom of Mbundu in the south being tributary states. In the East it bordered on the Kwango river, a tributary of the Congo River. In total the kingdom is said to have had 3 to 4 million inhabitants and a surface of about 300,000 km². According to oral traditions it was established in around 1400 when King Lukeni lua Nimi conquered the kingdom of Kabunga and established Mbanza Kongo as its capital.