Mbanza Kongo, Vestiges of the Capital of the former Kingdom of Kongo

Long before colonial borders redrew Africa, Mbanza Kongo governed one of the continent's great states: the Kingdom of Kongo, powerful from the 14th to the 19th century. On its 570-metre plateau the town clustered around the royal compound, the traditional court and a sacred tree; after Portuguese contact in the 15th century, some of sub-Saharan Africa's earliest European stone buildings rose beside them. Few places so clearly record Central Africa's encounter with Christianity, and UNESCO inscribed the site in 2017.