[10] By the 1550s Mbanza Kongo hosted a community of Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries who conspired together in an attempted overthrow of the manikongo Diogo I Nkumbi a Mpudi.

Alvaro managed to reclaim the capital with Portuguese military help, but had to yield Luanda, source of the nzimbu currency used in the kingdom, to them in payment.

M'banza-Kongo has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen Aw) similar to Kinshasa or Pointe-Noire, characterised by a fairly long though not intense wet season from October to May, and a relatively short but almost rainless dry season from June to September caused by the strong influence of the cold Benguela Current during this period.

M'banza Kongo is known for the ruins of its 16th century Cathedral of the Holy Saviour of Congo (built in 1491), which many Angolans claim is the oldest church in sub-Saharan Africa.

Other important sites include the Jalankuwo, the Manikongo's judgement tree, which can still be found in the downtown area of the city, along with the sunguilu, a rectangular ground level structure where local tradition says the king's body was washed before burial.

[2] The Royal Museum, recently rebuilt as a modern structure, houses an impressive collection of artifacts from the old Kingdom, even though many were lost from the older building during the Civil War of 1976–2002.