The limits of Portugal's claims to Angola…
1876 CE to 1887 CE
The limits of Portugal's claims to Angola are established in principle by the participants in the Berlin Conference of 1884, and in later years treaties with the colonial powers that control the neighboring territories delineate Angola's boundaries, but because other, more powerful European states of the nineteenth century have explored central Africa, they, not Portugal, determine Angola's boundaries.
The west coast territory Portugal acquires includes the left bank of the Congo River and the Cabinda enclave, an acquisition whose value to the state will be demonstrated in later years by the discovery there of oil.
Britain, however, forces Portugal to withdraw from Nyasaland (present-day Malawi) and Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe and Zambia).
