This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Postage stamps and postal history of Ubangi-Shari" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (February 2015) Click for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Russian article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 952 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at :ru:История почты и почтовых марок Убанги-Шари; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|ru|История почты и почтовых марок Убанги-Шари}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Ubangi-Shari (French: Oubangui-Chari) was a French colony in central Africa which later became the independent country of the Central African Republic on August 13, 1960. It followed the establishment of the Bangui outpost in 1889, and was named in 1894.

Colonial historyedit

The French did not establish a colonial administration until 1903, upon defeating Egyptian forces (the territory was claimed by the Egyptian Sultan). In 1906, the French settlements around Lake Chad were merged with Ubangi-Shari to form Ubangi-Shari-Chad (Oubangui-Chari-Tchad). In 1910, French Equatorial Africa was formed consisting of the four territories: Chad, Ubangi-Shari, Middle Congo, and Gabon. In 1915, Ubangi-Shari-Chad was made into an autonomous civilian colony. Chad was separated in 1920.

Postal historyedit

Military postal service began at Bangui in 1893, at Fort Possel in 1894, and was gradually extended along the Ubangi River and northwards into the country during the 1900s. Civilian mail used postage stamps of Middle Congo (Moyen Congo) from 1907.

In 1915, Middle Congo stamps were overprinted "OUBANGUI-CHARI-TCHAD" for use in Ubangi-Shari-Chad, and then in 1922 just "OUBANGUI-CHARI" after Chad obtained its stamps. In 1924, stamps were issued with the additional overprint "AFRIQUE EQUATORIALE FRANCAISE". A number of those were surcharged with new values between 1925 and 1927.

In 1928, postage due stamps of France were overprinted "OUBANGUI-CHARI / A. E. F.", followed in 1930 by a set of 11 postage dues issued specifically for the colony; printed in two colors, the lower values depicted a landscape, and the higher values Émile Gentil.

A 1931 set of four stamps for the Colonial Exposition was the last to be produced for the territory; from 1936 on, French Equatorial Africa issues were used until 1959.^[1]

See alsoedit

• Postage stamps of French Equatorial Africa
• Postage stamps and postal history of the Central African Republic

Referencesedit