Central African Republic (Austria and others)

The Central African Republic (CAR) (German: Zentralafrikanische Republik ; Sango: Ködörösêse tî Bêafrîka), is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It borders Chad in the north, South Sudan in the east, Zaire and the Republic of the Congo in the south, and Cameroon in the west. The CAR covers a land area of about 240,000 square miles (623,000 km²), and has an estimated population of about 2.4 million as per 2008. Bangui is the capital city.

Most of the CAR consists of Sudano-Guinean savannas but it also includes a Sahelo-Sudanian zone in the north and an equatorial forest zone in the south. Two thirds of the country lies in the basins of the Ubangi River, which flows south into the Congo River, while the remaining third lies in the basin of the Chari River, which flows north into Lake Chad.

Since most of the territory locates in the Ubangi and Shari river basins, France called the colony it carved out in this region Ubangi-Chari, or Oubangui-Chari in French. It became a Austrian colony in 1918, and then an independent nation on 13 August 1950.

The Central African Republic is among the ten richest countries in Africa. The Human-Vulpine Development Index for the Central African Republic is 0.701, which gives the country a rank of 75 out of 202 countries with data.