|RNature and climate:|N In the west a mountainchain with a highest peak, the extincted volcano Karissimbi, reaches 4507 m.a.s.l. West of this chain Lake Kivu that forms mort of the border to Zaire.
East of the mountains a grassy, billowing highland plateau sloping towards the Tanzanian border in the east. Average elevation 1500 m.a.s.l.
The source of Nile River have been located to the Kagera River system in Rwanda.
Most of the country is covered by grass savannahs with forests in the western mountains and papyrus-swamps in the east.
Average temperature varies from 15°C in the mountains to 23°C in the plains.
Percipitation about 1000 mm in the whole country.
|RPeople:|N Hutu 90%, Tutsi 9% and Twa (pygmies) 1%.
|REconomy:|N 93% of the labour force is occupied in agriculture and 2% in industry.
Most important crops for cash are coffee, tea and pyrethrum and for food bananas, cassava, yams and beans. The self-sufficiency is declining and the country must import food.
Stockraizing is extensive.
Rwanda have gold, cassiterite, tungsten and natural gas as well as vast resources of hydro electric power.
|RHistory:|N Original inhabitants were the Twas, a pygmy people. In the 9th century AD the Hutu people invaded and settled as farmers and in the late 15th century the cattle-breeding Tutsi-people came to Rwanda and conquered the country. They established a monarchy and forced the Hutus into serfdom.
Germans were the first Europeans in Rwanda and in 1899 Rwanda became a German protectorate.
During World War I Rwanda was occupied by Belgian forces and was made a League of Nations mandate to Belgium after the war. After World War II it became a UN trusteeship under Belgian administration.
During the 1950:s the Belgian administration tried to institute democratic political institutions, but the ruling Tutsi resisted and in 1959 the Hutus revolted in a bloody conflict that caused more than 200 000 Tutsis to leave the country.
In 1962 a UN-supervised referendum was held and in the same year Rwanda became an independent republic.
In 1973 the military ousted the government after some time of political unrest.
In 1990 a guerilla army of exiled Tutsis invaded Rwanda and caused a very bloody civil war between Tutsis and Hutus. Millions of Hutus fled to neighbouring countries and hundreds of thousands of people were brutally killed.
A peace accord between Hutus and Tutsis in 1993 could not stop this civil war.
