Kongba District

All towns and villages are involved in mining activities and have large expatriate populations from countries such as Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Whenever there is a new discovery of diamonds or gold in a village there is a large migration of both miners and business people to that particular center for the time the minerals are being mined. Livelihood activities include farming (slash-and-burn), alluvial mining of diamonds and gold and hunting of bush meat. Over 50% of the villages have fewer than 100 inhabitants. Kungbor has the largest population, followed by Zuie and Nomo. Butter Hill, Nomo, Fula Camp, Camp Israel, Fornor, Kawelahun and Kungbor are of medium size. There are two types of communities: the more permanent and stable communities - which have developed retail services, palm oil production, cocoa and coffee cultivations and more established houses (with zinc roofs), and the unstable transient towns or camps which are newly established or only inhabited in the dry season when mining activities take place. On this basis, six forest edge villages in Grand Camp area and eleven in Zui clan are classed as permanent settlements. Five communities in Gbarpolu County are classed as not stable.

Both Mende and Gola are spoken in Kongba district. Mende is preferred for general usage as it is largely understood both by the indigenous population as well as the expatriate worker community, but for issues regarding land ownership disputes, Gola is preferred as it is generally only understood by the indigenous population and excludes the expatriate community from such discussions.