Katanga Province

The eastern part of the province is a rich mining region which supplies cobalt, copper, tin, radium, uranium, and diamonds.

[4] In the 1890s, the province was beleaguered from the south by Cecil Rhodes' Northern Rhodesia, and from the north by the Belgian Congo, the personal possession of King Leopold II of Belgium.

[5][page needed] After 1900, the Societe Generale de Belgique practically controlled all of the mining in the province through Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK).

This included uranium, radium, copper, cobalt, zinc, cadmium, germanium, manganese, silver, gold, and tin.

[6] By the start of World War II, the mining companies "constituted a state within the Belgian Congo".

A number of reasons have been advanced for the failure of the vast mineral wealth of the province to increase the overall standard of living.

The Democratic Republic of Congo produces "more than 3 percent of the world’s copper and half its cobalt, most of which comes from Katanga".

[20] Katanga province has the highest rate of infant mortality in the world, with 184 of 1000 babies born expected to die before the age of five.

Malachite specimen, showing the original botryoidal form and a polished face of the opposite half of the specimen. Mines in the vicinity of Kolwezi supply much of the polishing-grade malachite in the world.
Another malachite specimen from Katanga, on display at the Royal Ontario Museum .
Mine de Shinkolobwe. The uranium for the Manhattan Project and the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki came from Shinkolobwe mine.
Hills of Katanga
Provincial assembly building of Katanga in Lubumbashi