Gabon

Gabon's second-largest city and the capital of Haut-Ogooué Province in the southeast, Franceville sits on the Plateaux des cataracts near the confluence of the Mpassa River with the Ogooué, surrounded by dense forest and rich in Franco-Gabonese colonial heritage.

Gabon's most important tributary of the Ogooué, the Ivindo River carves through the equatorial forest of Ogooué-Ivindo Province past the provincial capital Makokou, dropping over the spectacular Kongu Falls in a roar of white water surrounded by dense forest.

Gabon's capital and largest city sits on the Gabon Estuary where the Komo River meets the Atlantic, blending a modern skyline of glass towers with a centuries-old palm-fringed waterfront and a vibrant Franco-African cultural life.

A coastal wilderness spanning savanna, beach and forest in western Gabon, protecting a lagoon system and a range of wildlife including forest elephants, buffaloes and western lowland gorillas.

A UNESCO World Heritage site straddling central Gabon's forest-savanna transition zone, protecting one of Africa's most diverse landscapes where forest elephants, western lowland gorillas and mandrills inhabit ancient hills separated by islands of dense rainforest.

Gabon's second city and economic engine, Port-Gentil is a leading seaport on the Atlantic coast and the centre of the country's petroleum and timber industries, sitting on Mandji Island at the mouth of the Ogooué River with a distinctly industrial and cosmopolitan character.