Kisangani, formerly Stanleyville, city in the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire), capital of Orientale Region. The city is a major port on the Congo River, located just below Stanley Falls (also called Boyoma Falls), where the river becomes unnavigable. The city is served by railroads, maintains an airport, and is a terminus for steamers from Kinshasa, more than 1,600 km (1,000 mi) downriver. In the surrounding region farming and livestock raising are the chief occupations. Kisangani is a transshipment and small-scale manufacturing center and is the site of the University of Kisangani and an agricultural research institute.

A trading post was established near the site of the present-day city by Anglo-American explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley in 1882. Stanleyville was made a city in 1898 and renamed Kisangani in 1966. The city suffered from periods of political upheaval in the 1960s and 1990s which caused severe economic difficulties. In early 1997 Kisangani was the scene of the decisive battle in Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s successful rebellion against the three-decade-long dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko. Population (1994 estimate) 417,517.