Rwanda

Why Rwanda works

Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in East Africa a few degrees south of the Equator in the Great Rift Valley, bordered by Uganda to the north, Tanzania to the east, Burundi to the south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its geography is dominated by mountains in the west and savanna in the southeast, with major lakes concentrated in the western and northern regions and several volcanoes of the Virunga chain in the northwest. With a population of about 14 million living across 26,338 square kilometres, of which land accounts for roughly 93.7 percent, Rwanda is the 21st most densely populated country in the world, averaging about 578 people per square kilometre; its capital and largest city, Kigali, sits at the centre of the country at 1,567 metres above sea level.

Hunter-gatherers settled the territory during the Stone and Iron Ages, followed by Bantu peoples whose population coalesced first into clans and then into kingdoms; by the fifteenth century one kingdom, under King Gihanga, had incorporated neighbouring territories to form the Kingdom of Rwanda, which came to dominate the region from the mid-eighteenth century under Tutsi kings who centralised power through military conquest. Germany colonized Rwanda in 1897 as part of German East Africa, and Belgium took over administration in 1916 during the First World War, both ruling through the Rwandan king while favouring the Tutsi population; a Hutu revolt in 1959 led to an independent, Hutu-led republic in 1962, and a 1973 coup brought Juvénal Habyarimana to power. The Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front launched a civil war in 1990, and after Habyarimana's assassination in April 1994, the country experienced the Rwandan genocide before the RPF ended it with a military victory that set the course for Rwanda's subsequent reconstruction, including the growth of Kigali into the country's modern capital.

Rwanda sits at high altitude throughout, with its lowest point, the Rusizi River, at 950 metres above sea level, and the watershed between the Congo and Nile drainage basins running north to south through the country, sending about 80 percent of its area's water toward the Nile and 20 percent toward the Congo. The country's longest river, the Nyabarongo, rises in the southwest and eventually joins the Ruvubu to form the Kagera, which flows north along the Tanzanian border into Lake Victoria; its source in Nyungwe Forest is considered one candidate for the still-undetermined ultimate source of the Nile. Rwanda's largest lake, Lake Kivu, lies along its western border, and Volcanoes National Park in the northwest protects part of the Virunga volcanic chain, one of only three places in the world where mountain gorillas can be seen in the wild.

Rwanda has a tropical highland climate, with lower temperatures than typical equatorial countries owing to its elevation and annual precipitation generally between 1,000 and 1,400 millimetres depending on the area; Kigali's daily temperature typically ranges between 15 and 28°C with little variation across the year, and the mountainous west and north stay generally cooler than the lower-lying east. The country has two rainy seasons, from February to June and September to December, separated by a major dry season from June to September and a shorter, milder one from December to February, with the west and northwest receiving more rainfall annually than the east and southeast; a changing climate has reduced the overall number of rainy days while increasing the frequency of torrential rain, creating new difficulties for farmers.

Tourism is one of Rwanda's fastest-growing economic sectors and its leading source of foreign exchange: in 2023 the country recorded more than 1.4 million international visitors, and in 2024 the sector supported nearly 386,000 jobs and contributed more than 10 percent of GDP, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council. Mountain gorilla tracking in Volcanoes National Park remains the country's leading draw, alongside Nyungwe Forest National Park, known for its chimpanzees and canopy walkway, the resorts around Lake Kivu, and Akagera National Park, a savanna reserve in the east that is home to elephants, lions, and giraffes.

• Rwanda — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Text adapted from the linked articles under CC BY-SA 4.0; edited for length.

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