Africa’s only Spanish-speaking country got rich—unevenly—on oil
Equatorial Guinea, 28,000 square kilometres of Central African mainland Río Muni plus Bioko and Annobón islands, is Africa’s sole Hispanic state. Pygmy and later Bantu settlers preceded Portuguese sighting of Bioko in 1472 and Spain’s 1778 El Pardo acquisition; mid-1990s oil made it one of Africa’s highest per-capita incomes—and one of its most unequal.
The name refers to both the equator and the Guinea region of Africa; before independence the territory was Spanish Guinea. About 1,853,559 people lived there in 2025, more than 85 percent of them Fang, with the Bubi, native to Bioko, next at about 6.5 percent. Ciudad de la Paz became the capital in January 2026, and Bata is the biggest city.
Río Muni, the mainland, has Cameroon on its northern side, is wrapped by Gabon on the others and holds most of the population, along with the islets of Corisco and the two Elobeys. Bioko, once called Fernando Po, is the northernmost part of the country and home to Malabo, while Annobón lies far to the south-west beyond Portuguese-speaking São Tomé and Príncipe. The equator crosses the national waters about 1.4 degrees south of Annobón.
Bantu speakers followed the first Pygmy inhabitants in the sixth century BC. Portugal handed its Bight of Biafra claims to Spain in 1778. Independence in 1968 brought the brutal rule of Francisco Macías Nguema, who named himself president for life in 1972 and was ousted in 1979 by his nephew Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, still in power. Freedom House repeatedly places it among the worst of the worst, Reporters Without Borders lists Obiang as a press predator, and the US flags forced labour and sex trafficking.
Oil operated largely by American companies made the country one of Africa's richest per head, yet few people benefit. Still, its Human Development Index ranking, 133rd, is second-best in Sub-Saharan Africa, and under-five mortality fell from 17.9 percent in 1990 to 7.7 in 2021. French and, since 2010, Portuguese are also official, and literacy is among the region's highest.
Source: Equatorial Guinea
