Lambaréné
LambarĂ©nĂ©, city, west-central Gabon, located on an island in the OgoouĂ© River at a point where the river is over half a mile wide. It is a trading and lumbering centre with a steamboat landing, an airport, and road connections to Kango, NdjolĂ©, and Mouila. LambarĂ©nĂ© is best known for its hospital founded in 1913 by Albert Schweitzer, the theologian and mission doctor. There is a small museum devoted to Schweitzerâs life and work. The Paris Mission Society first established a mission there in 1876, and LambarĂ©nĂ© became the headquarters of Protestant missions in the former French Equatorial Africa. The town has a Protestant church and teacher-training school, a Roman Catholic church, a mosque, and a government medical centre and secondary school.
Plantation rubber has been introduced in the area, and petroleum is drilled to the northwest. Lambaréné has a large palm oil factory, and lumber and palm products are sent down the Ogooué to Port-Gentil, 100 miles (160 km) west, for export. Pop. (2003 est.) 9,000.