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| Overview | People | Geography | Economy | Government | Communications | Transport | Military | Map |
| Country | Rwanda |
| Flag |  |
| Capital | name: Kigali geographic coordinates: 1 57 S, 30 04 E time difference: UTC+2 (7 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time) |
| Population | 10,473,282 note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, higher death rates, lower population growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2009 est.) |
| GMT | +2 |
| Location | Central Africa, east of Democratic Republic of the Congo see map |
| Area | total: 26,338 sq km land: 24,948 sq km water: 1,390 sq km |
| Ethnic groups | Hutu (Bantu) 84%, Tutsi (Hamitic) 15%, Twa (Pygmy) 1% |
| Religions | Roman Catholic 56.5%, Protestant 26%, Adventist 11.1%, Muslim 4.6%, indigenous beliefs 0.1%, none 1.7% (2001) |
| Languages | Kinyarwanda (official) universal Bantu vernacular, French (official), English (official), Kiswahili (Swahili) used in commercial centers |
| Government type | republic; presidential, multiparty system |
| National holiday | Independence Day, 1 July (1962) |
| Constitution | new constitution passed by referendum 26 May 2003 |
| Legal system | based on German and Belgian civil law systems and customary law; judicial review of legislative acts in the Supreme Court; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction |
| Background | In 1959, three years before independence from Belgium, the majority ethnic group, the Hutus, overthrew the ruling Tutsi king. Over the next several years, thousands of Tutsis were killed, and some 150,000 driven into exile in neighboring countries. The children of these exiles later formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and began a civil war in 1990. The war, along with several political and economic upheavals, exacerbated ethnic tensions, culminating in April 1994 in the genocide of roughly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The Tutsi rebels defeated the Hutu regime and ended the killing in July 1994, but approximately 2 million Hutu refugees - many fearing Tutsi retribution - fled to neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire. Since then, most of the refugees have returned to Rwanda, but several thousand remained in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC; the former Zaire) and formed an extremist insurgency bent on retaking Rwanda, much as the RPF tried in 1990. Despite substantial international assistance and political reforms - including Rwanda's first local elections in March 1999 and its first post-genocide presidential and legislative elections in August and September 2003 - the country continues to struggle to boost investment and agricultural output, and ethnic reconciliation is complicated by the real and perceived Tutsi political dominance. Kigali's increasing centralization and intolerance of dissent, the nagging Hutu extremist insurgency across the border, and Rwandan involvement in two wars in recent years in the neighboring DRC continue to hinder Rwanda's efforts to escape its bloody legacy. |
| Internet country code | .rw |
