Nyanga

Nyanga covers 21,285 km², about 7.95% of the national territory, making it the seventh-largest province. It takes its name from the Nyanga river. Its landscape combines the forested hills of the Ikoundou massif in the north-east, a central plateau covered with shrub savannah and, in the west, a strip of wet savannah along the Atlantic coast.

The 2013 general population and housing census (RGPL) counted 52,854 inhabitants (2.5 people per km²), making it the least populated province in the country. The 2026 census results, validated by the Constitutional Court on 27 August 2026, report 68,215 inhabitants; Nyanga remains the least populated of the nine provinces. These national results are well above United Nations and World Bank estimates and have been debated in the Gabonese press.

The province has six departments. In 2013 Mougoutsi (Tchibanga) had 31,789 inhabitants, about 60% of the provincial population, ahead of Basse-Banio (Mayumba, 7,192). The other department capitals are Moabi (Douigny), Mabanda (Doutsila), Moulengui-Binza (Mongo) and Ndindi (Haute-Banio).

The province's subsoil holds several identified resources, including oil, iron ore (the Dourekiki deposit), marble (Doussiégoussou, worked for many years) and indications of diamonds, nickel and copper. The Lucina oil terminal lies offshore from Mayumba.

The forest supplies commercial species such as okoumé, moabi and padouk. In Mayumba, coffee, cocoa and rubber long drove the local economy, before logging and wood processing took over. The town's activity now rests mainly on trade in consumer goods and on the sale of fish caught in the Banio lagoon and at sea.

Tchibanga, 408 km south-east of Libreville, is served by the N6 national road and has an airport. The N6 links Mayumba, on the coast, to Lastoursville in Ogooué-Lolo, via Tchibanga. Mayumba also has an airfield.

Building port facilities at Mayumba, a site already used for trade with Europeans in the 16th century, has been discussed for many years. The project has been postponed, as its economic viability has not been established.

Two of Gabon's thirteen national parks are in Nyanga:

• Mayumba National Park (about 965 km²): a narrow strip of beaches, dunes, savannah and forest between Mayumba and the Congolese border. It protects about 60 km of leatherback turtle nesting beaches and extends 15 km out to sea, where it shelters dolphins, sharks and migrating humpback whales. It is the country's main marine park.
• Moukalaba-Doudou National Park (about 4,458 km²): humid rainforest and savannah, with one of the highest primate densities in Gabon. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has run a programme there since 1996, and the site has been on UNESCO's World Heritage tentative list since 2005.

The parks are managed by the national parks agency (ANPN).