Kinshasa 2025 – International Women’s Day

Kinshasa could not function without the small vendors, mostly women and girls, who are the face of daily markets throughout the city. Notwithstanding the spread of western-style supermarkets from Gombe into most Communes of the megalopolis, most Kinois purchase their daily household requirements from these small-scale sellers who provide an important, convenient service. With the exception of those renting stalls in a few formal markets, they often operate on the margins of legality -- anywhere they can find a patch of space along a public right of way -- and are consequently susceptible to extortion or expulsion by local authorities. On this International Women's Day, let us remember and recognize their contribution.

A vegetable seller on the road to Kimwenza, just off RN1 to Matadi (photo author coll.)

The first formal market in Kinshasa (Gombe) was located on the rail line to Leopoldville (Kintambo) approximately opposite the Grande Poste on Blvd. du 30 Juin. (photo author coll.)

A group of women at the Kinshasa market (photo author coll.)

In 1925 the Crédit Foncier Africain built the Mughal-inspired "covered market"
two blocks south (photo author coll.)

Vegetable sellers outside the Marché Couvert (photo author coll.)

Painter Guilherme Marques d'Oliveira's depiction of the market in 1942 (photo author coll.)

The Leopoldville municipality built a new public market in 1943, four blocks further south,
east of Parc De Bock along Ave. Ruakadingi (photo author coll.)

Selling dried fish at the public market (photo author coll.)

Shopping at the public market in the 1950s (photo author coll.)

Outside the market near the end of the day (photo author coll.)

In 1968, President Mobutu demolished the public market, replacing it with a larger facility on the same site (photo Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, Smithsonian Institution)

Sellers at the Marché Central in the 1970s (photo author coll.)

The meat section of the Marché Central 2010 (photo Beeckmans, 2010)

As Kinshasa continued to grow, shopping at the central market became a challenging logistical endeavor and road side sellers became more ubiquitous.

Off to find a place to set up shop (photo author coll.)

Young street vendors (photo author coll.)

Sellers at Matadi Kibala on RN1 to Matadi (photo mediacongo.net)

Workers bringing produce to the DAIPN market at Place des Evolués in 2018
(photo author coll.)

The Marché Central was demolished in March 2021 after having been closed for a year as a Covid-19 prevention measure. (photo 7sur7.cd)

A new Marché Central, now commonly called "Zando" in Lingala, is nearing completion on the same downtown site. Let's hope sellers and customers will enjoy as nice an experience as the architect's rendering suggests. (photo thinktank-architecture.fr)

Sources:

Beeckmans, Luce. 2009. "Agency in an African City: The various trajectories through time and space of the public market in Kinshasa".