In an area slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Maryland, Burundi's 6 million people are hemmed into east-central Africa by Tanzania to the south and east, Rwanda to the north and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the west. Once a part of German East Africa, the Republic of Burundi gained independence in 1962 from a United Nations trusteeship under the administration of Belgium.
Coffee is the economy's chief crop.
The country is mostly mountainous, leveling into a plateau on the east, and some plains. Finally, international pressure forced multiparty elections in 1993, which were won by the Hutus. Burundi fell into disarray. Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, was named interim president in 1996. Buyoya had overthrown the government of President Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, who had also ascended power at the head of a military coup, in 1987.