Pointe-Noire

Pointe-Noire is the second-largest city in the Republic of the Congo, standing on a headland between the Atlantic Ocean and Pointe-Noire Bay near the border with Angola. It was founded in 1883 following a treaty between France and the Kingdom of Loango, takes its name from black rocks that Portuguese navigators observed on the headland in 1484, and since Congo's 2002 constitution has held the status of both an autonomous department and a commune. The city is the country's oil industry center and a major export port, linked to Brazzaville by the Congo-Ocean Railway completed in 1934, and its 2023 census population was 1,420,612.