The Congo, short for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is an equatorial country located in central Africa. As of July 2018, the CIA World Factbook lists the Congo containing over 85 million inhabitants representing over 200 African ethnic groups. French is the country's official language, and Catholics comprise the largest religious group at fifty percent. The Congo was colonized by King Leopold II of Belgium in 1885, and known as Belgian Congo until independence in 1960. In recent decades, the CIA has been involved in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially in relation to the CIA's considerations and plans to assassinate former Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (and accusations of CIA involvement in his eventual assassination). Patrice Lumumba was the legally elected first prime minister of the independent country. Lumumba was killed on January 17, 1961, at the age of thirty-five near Élisabethville, Katanga. Even before the independence of the Congo, the U.S. government attempted to facilitate the election of a pro-western government by identifying and supporting individual pro-U.S. leaders. The CIA was also notably involved in a campaign against Lumumba's successor, which led to his eventual imprisonment and long exile from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The CIA was also a vital part of the United States' efforts to aid Joseph Mobutu, who took control of the Congo in 1965 and renamed the country Zaire and himself Mobutu Sese Seko. The CIA would work heavily with Mobutu, particularly in relation to American support for the National Liberation Front of Angola and Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. 1960 The independent Republic of the Congo was declared on 30 June 1960, with Joseph Kasa-Vubu as president and Patrice Lumumba as Prime Minister. The Democratic Republic of the Congo was originally a Belgian colony that was established in 1908. It shared a name with the neighboring Republic of the Congo to the west, a French colony that also gained independence in 1960; the two were differentiated by also stating the name of the relevant capital city—Congo (Léopoldville) versus Congo (Brazzaville). From the beginning of the Congo's independence, the CIA was running operations in the country to "...stabilize the government and minimize communist influence in a strategically vital, resource-rich location in central Africa." According to a report regarding the CIA's activities in the Congo from 1960 to 1968, the CIA "comprised activities dealing with regime change,