Africa is known to have been colonized by the British, French, Italians, Germans, Belgians, Portuguese and Spanish – the reason why we have almost every African speaking more than one language.
Spain is known to have colonized: The Western Sahara, North Morocco ( Ifni, the Tarfaya regions) and modern day Equatorial Guinea, which can be found between the borders of Cameroon and Gabon.
Equatorial Guinea is located in Central Africa, close to the Gulf of Guinea and borders between Cameroon and Gabon. Its capital is Malabo, and has a population of about 1.4 million people. It has four provinces, with the official currency as the Central African franc, and main resources being crude petroleum, gold, petroleum gas, rough wood and acyclic alcohol.
Equatorial Guinea gained its independence on October 12, 1968 from Spain – a move backed by the United Nations. Although gaining independence, the first president of the country at the time, Francisco Macias Nguema, had started a leftist dictatorship thereby causing a third of the population to flee.
There are a number of ethnic groups in the country as well, namely Fang, Bubi, Yoruba, Igbo, Spaniard, Seke and others with the Fang ethnic group being the largest with about 56.6% of the country’s population and Seke and Spaniard being the lowest with 2.8% and 2.9% respectively.
Although the country faces the worst human rights (ranking 7 meaning “least free” according to the Freedom Survey), they are amongst the richest countries on the continent, due to its minerals and oil, in addition to having some of the finest Mask and Sculpture artifacts. More importantly, they are the ONLY Spanish speaking country in the whole of Africa!
