French is the official language and is spoken country-wide. The basin is a vast low-lying plateau sloping to the west and covered by tropical rain forest. The eastern third of the country is a north-south belt of mountainous terraces bordering the African Great Lakes. The lakes and connecting rivers form a natural border with Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia. In the south and south east are plateaus merging into savannahs.
Dense grasslands extend north of the Congo Basin.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is potentially one of the richest mining countries in the world with a vast and highly diversified mineral regime.