Current Time in Boma, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Boma lies in the far west of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Kongo Central province, on the north bank of the Congo River roughly one hundred kilometres from the Atlantic. The river here is immensely wide and still tidal, edged by mangroves and low green hills, and ocean going ships can reach the town's quays. The climate is tropical, hot and humid, with a rainy season from October to May and a cooler, drier spell in the middle of the year.

The city has a population of well over three hundred and fifty thousand. It is a river port and a commercial centre for the surrounding region, exporting timber, cocoa, coffee, bananas and palm products, and handling imports for the western provinces alongside the larger port of Matadi upstream.

Boma has a longer connection with the outside world than almost anywhere else in the country. Portuguese navigators reached the mouth of the Congo in the 1480s and made contact with the Kingdom of Kongo, and by the seventeenth century Boma had become a significant trading post, dealing in ivory and, for a long and terrible period, in enslaved people shipped across the Atlantic. When the Congo Free State was proclaimed under King Leopold II of Belgium, Boma was chosen as its capital in 1886, and it remained the seat of government of the Belgian Congo until 1923, when the administration moved upriver to Léopoldville, the modern Kinshasa. Colonial buildings from that period still stand, including prefabricated metal structures shipped out from Europe, old warehouses, the former governor's residence and a cathedral, giving the town an atmosphere unlike anywhere else in the country.

Its best known curiosity is an enormous baobab tree said to have sheltered the explorer Henry Morton Stanley, hollow enough that people have used it as a room, and now a local landmark. The waterfront, with its view of ships and the vast brown river, is the natural place to walk in the evening, and small museums and monuments recall the town's role in the colonial period, a history that Congolese today regard with justified severity.

The surrounding region is the homeland of the Kongo people, and Kikongo is widely spoken alongside French and Lingala. Local culture is rich in music, and the guitar driven rumba that Congo gave to the world can be heard everywhere. Markets sell cassava, plantain, fish from the river and pineapples from the coastal plain, and the food centres on chikwangue, saka saka made from cassava leaves and grilled fish.

Downstream lies the mouth of the Congo and the mangrove marine park, an important reserve for manatees, turtles and birds, while the Atlantic coast at Muanda has beaches and offshore oil installations.

Roads connect Boma to Matadi and on to Kinshasa, a bridge project has long been planned, and the port and a small airport provide further links. Schools and higher institutes serve the city.

Boma is significant as one of the oldest towns in Central Africa and the first capital of the Congo.