Today we head to the first country completely surrounded by countries we’ve already covered. Gabon is yet another French-speaking African country. So to mix it up, today I’ve picked a different angle: contradictory reports about Gabon.

We’ll start with something everyone can agree on. Gabon, a country just a tad smaller than New Zealand with 85% of its land being covered by rainforest is undoubtedly home to a large gorilla population.

However, how large and what proportion of the entire population of gorillas live in Gabon is a lot less certain. Some sources claim Gabon is home to roughly 80% (around 35,000) of the world’s gorilla population.

However, it was discovered as recently as 2018 that the wild gorilla population is much larger than previously thought with estimates of a total population of 360,000. However threatened with deforestation, poaching (for bushmeat) and ebola this number may be about to drastically decline. Yes, I had no idea gorillas could contract ebola either!

I can completely understand that counting the number of gorillas in the vast rainforests of Central Africa is a pretty tricky task. However, you’d think it would be easier to measure the height of a mountain…

Apparently not. There is utter confusion about which is the tallest mountain in Gabon. This bizarre situation is summed up in a Wikipedia article essentially denying that Mont Iboundji is the highest peak:

“Claims that it is the highest point of the country, with an altitude of 1,575 metres (5,167 ft), are neither supported by SRTM data nor empirically.”

Wikipedia then goes on to list the height at the possibly incorrect number of 979 to 981 m, meanwhile, it is listed as 1,035 m, on OpenStreetMap. One possible source of confusion may be a project by a Polish blogger listing the tallest peaks in Africa titled “On the way to the highest peaks of African countries”.

I guess the author never made it to the highest peak in Gabon because it is unequivocally Mont Bengoué at an elevation of 1,070 m.

If we’ve learned anything today, it’s that Gabon really needs to hire some surveyors.

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