Zaire /zɑːˈɪər/, officially the Republic of Zaire (French:République du Zaïre; French pronunciation: ​[za.iʁ]) was the name, between 1971 and 1997, of a state in Central Africa which is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The state's name derived from the name of the Congo River, sometimes called Zaire in Portuguese, adapted from the Kongo word nzere or nzadi ("river that swallows all rivers").