Gaboon, a French colony on the west coast of Africa between the Atlantic and the middle Congo. Its north boundary touches the German colony of the Cameroons; its south boundary touches Portuguese Kabinda and the Congo State; and to the east the territory stretches along the Mobangi
(Ubangi) to the British sphere, and northward, behind the (German) Cameroon country to Lake Tsad. Area, 300,000 sq. m. Inlets into the coast are Corisco Bay and the estuaries of the Gaboon and Ogowé (q.v.), which, with the Kwih, are the principal rivers of the colony. The Gaboon, 10 miles wide at its entrance, penetrates 40 miles inland, with a width varying between 6 and 12 miles. On the north bank, which is tolerably high, is the European settlement of Libreville; the south bank is low and marshy. Its chief affluents are the Como or Olombo from the east and the Remboe from the south. Besides these the Licona, Alima, and Lefini, about which but little is known, flow eastwards into the Congo. The climate on the coastal strip is extremely unhealthy; mean annual temperature, 83° F. On the inland plateau (2600 feet above sea-level) it is better. The interior has not yet been fully explored; certain parts, as the basin of the Ogowé, the region around the sources of the Licona, the Kwih region, and the coast-lands, are fertile and rich in natural resources. Amongst the exports figure timber, gum, ivory, gutta-percha, palm oil and kernels, earth-nuts, sesamum, and malachite; other products are brown hematite, quicksilver, sugar-cane, cotton, and bananas. The principal imports are salt, spirits, gunpowder, guns, tobacco, cotton goods, and iron and brass wares. All agricultural operations are performed by women. The coast tribes engage in trade, which is particularly active around Loango in the south-west and on the Gaboon. The people belong for the most part to tribes of the Bantu stock, the more important being the Mpongwe, the Fans, Bakele, Bateke, &c. Sheep and goats are numerous, but the former yield no wool. This part of Africa was discovered by the Spaniards in the 15th century. The French made their first settlement on the Gaboon estuary in 1842; twenty years later they extended their sway to the Ogowé. But they seem never to have attached any importance to the colony until after Savorgnan de Brazza (q.v.) began to explore it in 1876–86. With the Ogowé (q.v.) territory, the Gaboon is now called French Congo. Franceville is the principal station in the interior. See books on the region by Dubreuil de Rhins (1885), Barret (1887), besides the works on the French Colonies.