Ruanda-Urundi
Territory of Ruanda-Urundi | |||||||||||
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| 1916–1962 | |||||||||||
Ruanda-Urundi (dark green) depicted within the Belgian colonial empire (light green), c. 1935 | |||||||||||
| Status | Mandate of Belgium | ||||||||||
| Capital | Usumbura | ||||||||||
| Common languages | French (official) also: Dutch. Majority: Kinyarwanda, Kirundi and Swahili | ||||||||||
| Religion | Catholicism (de facto) also: Protestantism, Islam and others | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| 6 May 1916 | |||||||||||
• Mandate created | 20 July 1922 | ||||||||||
• Administrative merger with Belgian Congo | 1 March 1926 | ||||||||||
• Mandate becomes Trust Territory | 13 December 1946 | ||||||||||
• Rwanda gains autonomy | 18 October 1960 | ||||||||||
• Burundi gains autonomy | 21 December 1961 | ||||||||||
• Independence | 1 July 1962 | ||||||||||
| Currency | Belgian Congo franc (1916–60) Ruanda-Urundi franc (1960–62) | ||||||||||
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| Today part of | Burundi Rwanda | ||||||||||
Ruanda-Urundi (French pronunciation: [ʁwɑ̃da uʁundi]), later Rwanda-Burundi, was a geopolitical entity, once part of German East Africa, that was occupied by troops from the Belgian Congo during the East African campaign in World War I and was administered by Belgium under military occupation from 1916 to 1922. It was subsequently awarded to Belgium as a Class-B Mandate under the League of Nations in 1922 and became a Trust Territory of the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II and the dissolution of the League. In 1962 Ruanda-Urundi became the two independent states of Rwanda and Burundi.