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Gabon straddles the equator on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, and nearly all of it is rainforest. The province is the unit that tells you which part of that forest a round is in, and there are only nine of them, five named after the Ogooué river or its tributary the Ivindo.
The provinces of Gabon, the first tier of the country. They have been the same nine since independence, and each is split into departments, which are the Gabon Departments quiz. The map is easy to read once the river is in your head: the Ogooué rises in the south east, runs north west across the middle of the country and reaches the sea near Port-Gentil, and four provinces are named for the stretch of it they hold, Haut (upper), Moyen (middle), Lolo (after its tributary) and Maritime. Ogooué-Ivindo is the fifth, named for the Ivindo, which joins it from the north east.
The provinces are very uneven. Moyen-Ogooué is the smallest by a long way, a pocket round the town of Lambaréné with two departments, while Ogooué-Ivindo and Woleu-Ntem fill the whole north. Estuaire is small too, but it holds the capital Libreville and about half of the people of the country, which is why it matters out of proportion to its area.
The groups are not an official classification. Gabon has no tier between the province and the country, so the quiz cuts the nine into the north, the centre and the south to let you drill the map a piece at a time.
Estuaire holds Libreville, on the north side of the estuary of the Komo, and the quiz's smallest departments sit around it. It is not a large province, but it is the one most travellers arrive in, and the roads fan out of it towards the rest of the country.
Moyen-Ogooué is the pocket the Ogooué crosses on its way to the sea, with Lambaréné on an island in the river. It is the easiest to lose on the map, because it is surrounded on every side and has no coast.
Ogooué-Maritime is the long coastal province in the south west, and its capital Port-Gentil, on a peninsula at the mouth of the river, is the centre of the oil industry. The province is mostly lagoons and forest, with no road connecting Port-Gentil to the capital.
Nine. Each is divided into departments, 49 in all, and the quiz for those groups them by province.
No. Libreville is the capital of Estuaire, and is also a department of its own, so it appears on the departments map rather than here.
Gabon has nothing between the provinces and the country, so the north, the centre and the south are a way to drill the map, not a classification.
The tier below this one is Gabon Departments. For another country in the region, see Cameroon Regions.
