Portuguese-speaking African countries postcolonial discourse that attempts to explain the development of the modern nation-state in Lusophone Africa and shed light on its failures. Portuguese-speaking African countries The Portuguese-speaking African countries (also referred to as Lusophone Africa) consist of six African countries in which the Portuguese language is an official language: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and, since 2011, Equatorial Guinea. The six countries are former colonies of the Portuguese Empire. From 1778 until independence, Equatorial Guinea was also a colony of the Spanish Empire. In 1992, the five Lusophone African countries formed an interstate organisation called PALOP, a
Angola series of renewed military expeditions into the hinterland. By the mid-nineteenth century Portugal had established its dominion as far east as the Congo River and as far south as Mossâmedes. Until the late 1880s, Lisbon entertained proposals to link Angola with its colony in Mozambique but was blocked by British and Belgian opposition. In this period, the Portuguese came up against different forms of armed resistance from various peoples in Angola. The Berlin Conference in 1884–1885 set the colony's borders, delineating the boundaries of Portuguese claims in Angola, although many details were unresolved until the 1920s. Trade between Portugal and