Lubumbashi is located on a railroad line near the Zambian border of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The city was named for the small river that flows through it and that ends in a small lake. The city is more famous for its politics than its setting or architecture: from revolts against forced labor under the Belgians in World War II, to rebellion against the cetnral state in the 1960's, to Kabila's declaration there of himself as sucessor to Mobuto Sese Seko.