Katanga was one of the four large provinces created in the Belgian Congo in 1914. It was one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1966 and 2015, when it was split into the Tanganyika, Haut-Lomami, Lualaba, and Haut-Katanga provinces. Between 1971 and 1997 (during the rule of Mobutu Sese Seko when Congo was known as Zaire), its official name was Shaba Province.
Katanga's area encompassed 497,000 square kilometres (192,000 sq mi). Farming and ranching are carried out on the Katanga Plateau.
The eastern part of the province is a rich mining region which supplies cobalt, copper, tin, radium, uranium, and diamonds. The region's former capital, Lubumbashi, is the second-largest city in the Congo.
Katanga declared its independence on July 11, 1960, just two weeks after the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) gained its independence from Belgium.
This declaration of secession, led by Moïse Tshombe, sparked the Congo Crisis, a conflict that lasted for several years. Katanga's independence as a separatist state ended in January 1963, when United Nations forces intervened and reintegrated the province into the rest of the country.
Face value | Family number | English name | Scientific name
1960.01
19.09.1960
Overprint KATANGA on Belgian Congo 1959.01
20c
70
Western Cattle Egret Ardea ibis
Philately has been considered as an "auxiliary science of history" because it is based on the general principles of other sciences, which in turn contribute to enrich it. It acquires knowledge of the sciences, of the arts, of languages and opens an immense road of social relations through all countries. This science broadens broad horizons of culture, discovers artistic temperaments and offers the interest of the new and the unknown, while performing a positive therapeutic wor.
