Burundi

Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, occupies a slender expanse of land in East Africa where the contours of the Great Rift Valley converge with the rolling plateaus of the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa. Despite its diminutive size—among the smallest nations on the continent—Burundi’s landscapes, peoples and history weave together a tapestry of resilience, contradiction and quiet beauty. Bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and southeast, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and with Lake Tanganyika tracing its southwestern frontier, Burundi presents a topography of lofty highlands, fertile valleys and shimmering waterways. Its political capital, Gitega, presides over the nation’s heartland, while Bujumbura, perched on the northeastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, serves as its economic fulcrum.

For more than half a millennium, Burundi’s terrain has been home to three principal ethnic communities: the Twa, Hutu and Tutsi. The Twa, numbering fewer than one percent of today’s population, represent Burundi’s original hunter‑gatherer peoples; the Hutu, who comprise roughly eighty‑five percent of the populace, and the Tutsi, constituting about fifteen percent, have long engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry upon the red soils of the central plateau. From the fifteenth century until the nineteenth, a monarchical kingdom deftly navigated regional rivalries, maintaining sovereignty and an intricate system of chieftaincies.

The late nineteenth century brought dramatic upheaval. In 1885 the territory was subsumed into German East Africa, initiating nearly three decades of colonial rule. Germany’s defeat in World War I transferred Burundi, along with neighbouring Rwanda, into a Belgian‑mandated territory under the League of Nations; after World War II it evolved into a United Nations Trust Territory. Independence finally arrived on 1 July 1962, when the kingdom became the Republic of Burundi. Initially retaining its monarchy, the nation soon faltered: a 1966 coup dismantled the royal house, installing a one‑party republic dominated by successive Tutsi rulers. In 1972 a targeted genocide shattered any remaining national cohesion as Hutu communities suffered mass killings.

The year 1993 offered a slender hope of reconciliation. Melchior Ndadaye, the country’s first democratically elected Hutu president, assumed office in July only to be assassinated three months later during a coup attempt. His death triggered a twelve‑year civil war that left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. Negotiations culminating in the Arusha Peace Agreement of 2000 paved the way for a new constitution in 2005. Since that year’s elections, the National Council for the Defence of Democracy–Forces for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD–FDD), a Hutu‑led party, has presided over government, often accused of authoritarianism and a deteriorating human‑rights situation.

Administratively, Burundi is divided into eighteen provinces, one hundred nineteen communes and 2,638 collines—“hills”—an echo of the traditional chieftain system formally replaced by Belgian decree on 25 December 1959. In March 2015 the newest province, Rumonge, emerged from parts of Bujumbura Rural and Bururi. More recently, in July 2022, the government proposed a territorial overhaul: reducing provinces from eighteen to five and communes from 119 to 42. Pending parliamentary approval, this reform seeks to streamline administration and foster closer ties between authorities and citizens.

Geographically, Burundi’s mean elevation of 1,707 metres affords an equatorial climate tempered by altitude. Mount Heha, at 2,685 metres southeast of Bujumbura, stands as the nation’s summit. The Albertine Rift—home to montane forests, Central Zambezian miombo woodlands and the Victoria Basin forest‑savanna mosaic—traces Burundi’s western flank. Lake Tanganyika, one of the world’s deepest freshwater bodies, laps the southwestern border. To the southeast, the source of the White Nile—via the Ruvyironza River—rises in Bururi province, linking Burundi to Lake Victoria and, beyond, to the Kagera River.

Ecologically, Burundi has borne the scars of intense human settlement. By 2005, less than six percent of its land retained tree cover; deforestation, soil erosion and habitat loss stalked the countryside. Yet by 2020 forest cover inched upward to approximately eleven percent—279,640 hectares—divided between 166,670 hectares of naturally regenerating woodland (23 percent of which remained primary forest) and 112,970 hectares of plantation forest, entirely under public ownership and nearly half safeguarded within protected areas. Two national parks—Kibira in the northwest, contiguous with Rwanda’s Nyungwe Forest, and Ruvubu in the northeast along the Ruvubu River—have stood since 1982 as key refuges for wildlife and vestiges of the once‑widespread highland forest.

Burundi’s economy is overwhelmingly agrarian. In 2017 agriculture accounted for half the gross domestic product and employed over ninety percent of the workforce, ninety percent of whom subsist on family farms averaging barely one acre as of 2014. Coffee and tea exports furnish ninety percent of the nation’s foreign exchange, though the volatility of weather and world markets renders revenues unpredictable. Other staples—cotton, maize, sorghum, sweet potatoes, bananas and manioc—support domestic needs, while cattle, milk and hides contribute modestly to rural livelihoods. Vulnerable to land scarcity, rapid population growth and the absence of cohesive land‑tenure laws, many Burundians struggle to secure basic sustenance. Approximately eighty percent live below the poverty line, and chronic malnutrition afflicts some fifty‑six point eight percent of children under five.

Transport infrastructure reflects these constraints. As of 2005 fewer than ten percent of roads were paved. Bujumbura International Airport, the sole airfield with a sealed runway, handled flights by Brussels Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways and RwandAir as of May 2017, with Kigali offering the most connections. Overland buses ply the route to Kigali, but links to Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo remain absent. A ferry, the MV Mwongozo, connects Bujumbura with Kigoma in Tanzania. Plans persist for a rail corridor from Bujumbura through Kigali to Kampala and onward to Kenya, promising to transform regional access if realized.

Demographically, Burundi’s population has swelled from approximately 2.46 million in 1950 to over 12.3 million by October 2021, growing at 2.5 percent annually and sustaining one of the world’s highest fertility rates—averaging 5.10 children per woman in 2021. Urban dwellers comprised only about thirteen point four percent of the population in 2019, leaving the countryside remarkably dense at some 315 persons per square kilometre. Emigration, spurred by relief to young people devoid of opportunity and by the legacy of civil conflict, has dispersed Burundian communities across East Africa and beyond; in 2006 the United States alone admitted some 10,000 refugees.

Burundi’s cultural landscape reflects its agrarian rhythms and oral traditions. A typical meal unites sweet potatoes, corn, rice and peas; meat appears infrequently, reserved for special occasions. In communal gatherings, participants share impeke, a traditional beer consumed from a single vessel to signify unity. Artisanal crafts—basket weaving, masks, shields, statues and pottery—endure as sources of livelihood and tokens of hospitality for the occasional visitor. Music and dance remain central: the Royal Drummers of Burundi, wielding karyenda, amashako, ibishikiso and ikiranya drums, have championed traditional performance for over forty years. Ceremonial dances such as the stately abatimbo and the rapid‑fire abanyagasimbo animate festivals. Instruments—flute, zither, ikembe, indonongo, umuduri, inanga and inyagara—accompany songs and celebrations.

Literary expression thrives in oral genres: Imigani (proverbs and fables), indirimbo (songs), amazina (praise poetry) and ivyivugo (war chants) pass history and morality from one generation to the next. Sports also claim ardent followers: association football and mancala games hold sway in villages and towns, basketball and track and field attract youthful energy, and martial arts find adherents in clubs such as the Club Judo de l’Entente Sportive in downtown Bujumbura and its four counterparts throughout the city.

Religious observances mirror the nation’s diverse faiths. Christian holidays predominate, with Christmas celebrated most widely. Independence Day each 1 July unites the country in remembrance of its 1962 liberation. In 2005 the government designated Eid al‑Fitr a public holiday, acknowledging the significance of Islam in Burundi’s social fabric.

Burundi’s place on the international stage reflects both its challenges and its aspirations. It holds membership in the African Union, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the East African Community, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, the United Nations and the Non‑Aligned Movement. Yet it remains one of the world’s least developed states, confronted by endemic poverty, corruption, political volatility and deficit education. The 2018 World Happiness Report ranked it at the bottom of 156 nations, underscoring the depth of social struggles at the core of daily life. And yet within these hardships endures a quiet fortitude: the rhythm of agricultural toil, the echo of drums at dawn, the enduring bonds of clan and hill. In these ordinary gestures resides the enduring spirit of Burundi, a land of rolling hills, complex history and tenacious hope.