Mangola has become in recent decades the most popular mancala game played in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is known from the Virunga mountains to the Sudanese border, and from Bangui (Central African Republic) to Arui near Uganda. Mangola is a new game which was developed after 1911 according to the ethnologue Philip Townshend and is now gradually replacing older games such as Sombi and single-lap mancala games. The game was spread by the Belgian colonial administration and military along rivers and roads and is the only mancala game played in the central basin (one of the few African regions where mancala games were still unknown in the 19th century).