Angola: Political System
According to CANCERMATTERS.NET, Angola is a presidential republic. The unicameral parliament is elected every 4 years. The head of state is directly elected every five years. See AbbreviationFinder for more information about Angola politics, and acronyms as well.
Tthe official name of the country is:
| República de Angola Republic of Angola |
National anthem
Angola Avante (“Forward Angola”) has been Angola’s national anthem since 1975. The Portuguese text is by Manuel Rui Alves Monteiro, the music was composed by Rui Alberto Vieira Dias Mingao.
| The original Portuguese text | In the English translation |
| Ó Pátria, nunca mais esqueceremosOs heróis do quatro de Fevereiro
Ó Pátria, nós saudamos os teus filhos Tombados pela nossa Independência. |: Honramos o passado ea nossa História, Construindo no Trabalho o Homem novo: |CHORUS |: Angola, avante! Revolução, pelo Poder Popular! Pátria Unida, Liberdade, Um só povo, uma só Nação!: | Levantemos nossas vozes libertadas Para glória dos povos africanos. Marchemos, combatentes angolanos, Solidários com os povos oprimidos. |: Orgulhosos lutaremos pela Paz Com as forças progressistas do mundo.: |CHORUS |
O Fatherland, we shall neverforget the heroes of February 4th.
O fatherland, we greet your sons who fell for our independence. |: We honor the past and our history by creating the new person through our work.: |REFRAIN |: Forward Angola! Revolution by the power of the people! United Fatherland, Freedom, One People, One Nation!: |Let us raise our liberated voices in honor of the African peoples. March, Angolan fighters, in solidarity with the oppressed peoples. |: We proudly fight for peace with the progressive forces of the world.: |REFRAIN |
National flag
The national flag (national flag) of Angola was officially introduced on November 11, 1975. Based on flag descriptions by Countryaah.com, the two colors are interpreted as follows:
– Red symbolizes the blood that was shed in the struggle for their independence. It used to stand for socialism
– black symbolizes Africa
. Angola’s emblem is in the center of the flag. It shows half of a gear, a machete, and a five-pointed star, the gear symbolizing the working class, the machete the peasants, and the star symbolizing progress and internationalism.
- Check top-mba-universities for public holidays, sports events, UNESCO world heritage sites and major places to visit in Angola.
Angola: animals
Mammals
In the north you can find dry savannahs with the animals typical of Africa baboons, hippos and the unfortunately increasingly rare rhinos and elephants. Common ungulates are antelopes such as the bongo, Angola giraffes, zebras and also water buffalo, which are kept as livestock. These animals are so excellent and frugal pack animals that they were born as early as 3,000 BC. domesticated and were soon kept in all countries where the climatic conditions allowed it. Their skin is also processed into leather and their milk is drunk.
Honey badgers as well as warthogs and porcupines are also adapted to the steppe, whereby the latter are not real pigs, but belong to the rodents.
The honey badger partly feeds on the sweet honeycombs of the honeybees. His thick fur protects him from their stings, but his sensitive nose is unprotected, so that he has to accept a sore nose tip for the reward from the sweet honey.
The predators are represented by cape hyenas, cheetahs, leopards and lions. In addition, ungulates such as antelopes and the brawny African buffalo are found in the steppes of the south. Pygmy hippos can be found in and around the rivers. Animals such as the bushbuck and crested antelope, brush-eared pigs and the Maxwell’s duiker more prefer wooded areas. Ducker belong to the dwarf antelopes.
Monkeys are numerous. The endangered chimpanzees and gorillas can still be found here, as well as white and red colobus monkeys. The semi-apes include pottos, a rather sedate species that belongs to the loris, which lemurs and monkeys are compared to.
The Angola giant saber is endemic. It can be seen on banknotes and many postage stamps. It is a large, black species of antelope with strongly curved back horns up to 1.70 m in length. The first specimen in 40 years was discovered only recently.
Reptiles, amphibians without venomous snakes
The western armored crocodile occurs in the rivers of the savannah.
The leopard tortoise is found near water bodies in the woods. It grows up to 70 cm and has a black-blue shell with 6 pale green fields.
Splendid skink is colorful, but difficult to find. He has a rust-brown back and fiery red spots on his stomach.
However, it is very shy and can dig well.
Angola’s dwarf gecko is barely 7 cm tall. It has a bright yellow head with black spots while the rest of the body is light blue.
The non-poisonous snakes found here are the rock python and the natal python.
Poisonous snakes
The following venomous snakes are found in Angola:
Boomslang, African tree snake
Horned puff adder
Ordinary puff adder
Rhinoceros viper
Black mamba,
Black and white cobra, white lipped cobra
Southern bird snake
Zebra cobra, zebra snake
Miniature puff adder, Peringuey desert viper
More poisonous animals
The poisonous “Red Tide” is triggered by a mass appearance of poisonous dinoflagellates. These protozoa occur in such large quantities at the time that they color the sea red. At this time it is better to eat chicken or vegetarian, as this is the time when marine animals come into contact with the poison of the flagellates. Baracudas, red snapper and other reef fish do not belong on the plate at this time.
A storm can bring cnidarians such as the Portuguese galley or the extremely dangerous box jellyfish close to the coast.
With scorpions all over the world, including in Angola, the rule of thumb applies: the thicker the tail, the stronger the poison.
Although it is not known that a healthy, adult person has died of a scorpion sting.
Birds
Almost 1,000 different bird species have been made at home in Angola, or at least counted as temporary guests.
17 types of herons, such as the silver, purple, black-necked and goliath herons. The Goliath Heron is the largest heron in the world at 1.40 m. It feeds exclusively on fish, of which it can swallow specimens weighing up to 3 kg whole.
Of the 8 species of stork, the marabou is the largest. Since it prefers to feed on carrion, its head, like the upper part of the neck, is bald.
Countless birds of prey adorn the Angolan sky. Most of them are vultures, hawks and harriers. 12 species of eagles are also found here. The Cape Eagle, for example, can be recognized by a white V on the otherwise black body, which can be seen both when it is sitting and when it is flying. Angola’s 18 types of railing are incorrectly referred to as pond or pond chickens. All have a kind of shield made of feathers of the same color as their beak on their head and have very long legs with also long toes. Although they are webbed, they can still swim. There are diving birds, 12 petrels and 5 albatross species on the coast. Albatrosses have a wingspan of up to 3 m and, taking advantage of the updraft, can sail over the sea for hours without flapping their wings.
The cuckoo, which is widespread in Africa, has 20 species in Angola, including the thick-billed, olive and African cuckoo. By no means all species lay their eggs in foreign nests.
Bearded birds are particularly rich in species in Angola. They are the size of a sparrow, but have no protruding beard, but brightly colored throats, from metallic blue to bright yellow.
In the forest there are 15 species of pigeons and 7 parrots, such as the orange head, a green 20 cm large parrot, the head of which is mostly bright red.
Turaco are very colorful, like the magnificent blue turaco. The gray noisy bird is also a turaco, but by no means colorful. It is called Go-Away-Bird in English because its very loud scream sounds similar to Go-Go-Go-Away. All turacos wear a crown of feathers on their heads.
Insects, spiders
Huge termite mounds adorn the landscape in the savannah. Although termites are able to digest wood thanks to a symbiosis with numerous protozoa and bacteria, most species of fungi grow on chewed wood. These “first farmers in the world” are also known from the South American leaf cutter ants, to which the termites are by no means closely related, despite great similarities such as the formation of states and mushroom cultivation.
Beetle species such as the pill turner, which turns a ball out of mammal feces, buries it and lays an egg on it, are common, so that its larva feeds on the feces until it leaves the cave.
The Angola moth is a moth whose larvae, like those of the palm weevil, serve the rural population as a source of protein and vitamins. The winged termite males are also eaten in some places.
Underwater world
Mackerel and sardines are fished intensively in Angola. Overfishing also endangers many other species, such as the hawksbill sea turtle, which has already become rare because of the tortoise hunt, and the gray ridged turtle.
The reefs are inhabited by pipefish, rays, frog fish and flounder. Pipefish are related to the seahorses. They are elongated, tapering towards the rear and are up to four feet long in Angola’s deep sea. The frogfish gets its name because most of the time it crouches like a frog and lies in wait for prey. It is well camouflaged and its fins are reminiscent of the feet of a frog in this position.
7 types of shark are counted, including the big-eyed thresher shark, which is called Peixe-rato in the local language. The upper part of its caudal fin is extremely elongated. It is considered a man-eating species.
Sea slugs, bright red cardinal shrimp, and various types of starfish and hedgehogs are found.
Angola’s deep sea, the Angola Basin, is home to the most animal species per area in the world. Sometimes also the largest fish on earth, the whale shark. It is a plankton-eating shark up to 15 m tall, which is considered harmless to humans (divers) and is gladly seen.
Plants in Angola
Trees
The west coast is lined with mangroves. In the interior there are umbrella acacias, the Angola mahogany tree and the Padouk tree, whose red wood is used to make recorders, among other things. The fully grown tree is knotless up to a height of 20 m and from there forms a wide umbrella. The trunk can reach a diameter of 1.20 m.
The ebony tree is found in Angola, among others. It reaches a height of about 9 m and has an umbrella-like crown with reddish leaves. Its trunk becomes about 30 cm thick and the core wood is deep black.
The famous baobab is also found here. It has a conspicuously shaped trunk and silver-gray bark and belongs to the wool tree family. It can live up to 1,000 years. Furthermore, it is characterized by its cucumber-shaped and wood-skinned fruits as well as fatty seeds. The baobab can store up to 5000 liters of water in the dry season, but then it loses all of its leaves to protect itself from excessive evaporation. If such a tree falls, it is valued by cattle as food and by farmers as valuable fertilizer.
The phantom tree is a very special tree. It is about 9 m high and you can easily recognize it by its bizarre growth shape. Its trunk seems to be a collection of swellings from which branches grow, which in places look like a sausage skin that is too full, with sparse leaves at the ends.
Crops
The farmers plant mangoes, pineapples, bananas, coffee and cocoa. Rice is grown in the wetter areas. Acacias are grown for this purpose as fodder. Rubber products are made from the yield of rubber trees and vines. Cotton is grown locally.
Medicinal plants
The nuts of the cola tree are used as the raw material for the lemonade named after them. Its stimulating effect is comparable to that of coffee or guarana.
The annual mugwort is used in Angola as a herbal active ingredient against malaria. The shrub becomes about 1 m high, lush green and grows more in height than in width. It has leaves that are already strongly pinnate near the stem. In some places papaya cigarettes are used to relieve asthmatic symptoms.
Poisonous plants
Most of the medicinal plants mentioned above are toxic in higher doses. According to Paracelcus (1493-1541) this applies very generally:
“Dose facit venenum”. (The dose makes the poison).
The poison of the Euhorbiaceen is used for arrowheads all over Africa.
More plants
About 150 types of plants are counted. While the flora in the dry steppes is rather sparse, numerous bromeliads, colorful orchids, various ferns, mosses and lichens grow as epiphytes on the larger trees in the forests.
Welwitschia, a living fossil, is found exclusively in the Namib desert. It only has 2 leaves, but they can be frayed by the wind. The part of the leaves that is longer than 3 m dries up while the remaining part continues to grow. In this way, the plant can live to be over 1,000 years.
