Formerly part of French Equatorial Africa, the Republic of Gabon gained independence in August 1960. Gabon has an area of 267,669 square kilometers (103,347 square miles), and in 2003 its population was estimated at 1.32 million, which is divided into various small to medium-size ethnic groupings. The three largest constitute only 55 percent of the total. Gabon's export economy initially was based on tropical wood, manganese, and uranium, but oil has provided its linchpin since the early 1970s, and Gabon remains a leading African oil producer.

Leon M'Ba (1902–1967) served as Gabon's first president from 1961 until his death in 1967. His successor, Albert-Bernard (later Omar) Bongo Ondimba (b. 1935), is Africa's second longest-serving head of state. Gabon became a one-party state soon after independence in 1960. After surviving a coup attempt in 1964, the regime enjoyed both political stability and rapid economic growth until the late 1980s, when economic difficulties sparked pressures for political reform that produced a restoration...