Kong

Kong, a district of West Africa, stretching from 8° 30' to 12° N. lat. along the upper course of the Comoe (month at Grand Bassam on the Ivory Coast), and measuring some three degrees of longitude. The district is a plateau, whose average elevation is 2300 feet above sea-level, rising in a few groups of peaks up to 6000 feet. The Kong Mountains of the geographers are affirmed by Binger to be merely isolated granitic peaks only 300 feet above the plateau. The people, Mandingoes by race and Mohammedans by religion, manufacture cotton stuffs and carry on indigo-dyeing. The capital of the state is the town of Kong, with from 12,000 to 15,000 inhabitants. This district was declared a protectorate of France in 1889. See Bull. Soc. Géog. de Paris (1889) for a paper by Captain Binger.