President: Jose Eduardo dos Santos
Jose Eduardo dos Santos, of the ruling MPLA, has led Angola since 1979, when the country's first president, Agostinho Neto, died.
The MPLA won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections held in September 2008, the first polls to be held in the country for 16 years.
Long-awaited presidential elections were expected to be held in 2009, but were delayed, and in January 2010, parliament approved a new constitution abolishing direct elections for the president.
Instead, the presidency will now automatically be filled by the top-ranking candidate of the party winning the parliamentary election.
The change means Mr Dos Santos will stay in office until 2012, when the current parliament's mandate runs out.
This, along with measures strengthening the presidency's powers, prompted the main opposition Unita party to accuse the government of "destroying democracy" with the new basic law.
In the 1992 presidential poll, Mr Dos Santos narrowly beat Unita leader Jonas Savimbi, who rejected the result and resumed his guerrilla war. There was no second round of voting in the poll, although Mr Dos Santos is recognised internationally as Angola's president.
Born in 1942, Mr Dos Santos joined the MPLA's guerrilla army at the age of 19. In the former Soviet Union he trained in oil engineering and radar technology. He held ministerial posts before becoming president.
A chronology of key events:
1300s - Kongo kingdom consolidates in the north.
1483 - Portuguese arrive.
1575 - Portuguese found Luanda.
17th and 18th centuries - Angola becomes a major Portuguese trading arena for slaves. Between 1580 and 1680 a million plus are shipped to Brazil.
1836 - Slave trade officially abolished by the Portuguese government.
1885-1930 - Portugal consolidates colonial control over Angola, local resistance persists.
1951 - Angola's status changes from colony to overseas province.
1956 - The early beginnings of the socialist guerrilla independence movement, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), based in northern Congo.
1950s-1961 - Nationalist movement develops, guerrilla war begins.
1961 - Forced labour abolished after revolts on coffee plantations leave 50,000 dead. The fight for independence is bolstered.
1974 - Revolution in Portugal, colonial empire collapses.
Independence
1975 - Angola gains independence but power struggle ensues between MPLA, backed by Cuba, and the FNLA plus Unita, backed by South Africa and the USA.
1976 - MPLA gains upper hand.
1979 - MPLA leader Agostinho Neto dies. Jose Eduardo dos Santos takes over as president.
1987 - South African forces enter Angola to support Unita.
1988 - South Africa agrees to Namibian independence in exchange for removal of Cuban troops from Angola.
1989 - Dos Santos, Unita leader Jonas Savimbi agree cease-fire, which collapses soon afterwards and guerrilla activity resumes.
Towards peace
1991 April - MPLA drops Marxism-Leninism in favour of social democracy.
1991 May - Dos Santos, Savimbi sign peace deal in Lisbon which results in a new multiparty constitution.
1992 September - Presidential and parliamentary polls certified by UN monitors as generally free and fair. Dos Santo gains more votes than Savimbi, who rejects results and resumes guerrilla war.
1993 - UN imposes sanctions against Unita. The US acknowledges the MPLA.
1994 - Government, Unita sign Lusaka Protocol peace accord.
1995 - Dos Santos, Savimbi meet, confirm commitment to peace. First of 7,000 UN peacekeepers arrive.
1996 - Dos Santos, Savimbi agree to form unity government join forces into national army.
1997 April - Unified government inaugurated, with Savimbi declining post in unity government and failing to attend inauguration ceremony.
1997 May - Tension mounts, with few Unita troops having integrated into army.
1998 - Full-scale fighting resumes. Thousands killed in next four years of fighting.
Angola intervenes in civil war in Democratic Republic of Congo on the side of President Laurent-Desire Kabila.
1999 - UN ends its peacekeeping mission.
2002 February - Savimbi killed by government troops. Government, Unita sign ceasefire shortly afterwards.
Demobilisation
2002 May - Unita's military commander says 85% of his troops have gathered at demobilisation camps. There are concerns that food shortages in the camps could threaten the peace process.
2002 June - UN appeals for aid for thousands of refugees heading home after the ceasefire.
Medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres says half a million Angolans are facing starvation, a legacy of civil war.
2002 August - Unita scraps its armed wing. "The war has ended," proclaims Angola's defence minister.
2003 February - UN mission overseeing the peace process winds up.
2003 June - Unita - now a political party - elects Isaias Samakuva as its new leader.
2004 April onwards - Tens of thousands of illegal foreign diamond miners are expelled in a crackdown on illegal mining and trafficking. In December the government says 300,000 foreign diamond dealers have been expelled.
2004 September - Oil production reaches one million barrels per day.
2005 March-May - Marburg virus, which is deadlier than Ebola, kills more than 300 people, most of them in the north.
2005 June - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visits, promises to extend more than $2 billion in new credit, in addition to a $3 billion credit line Beijing has already given Luanda.
2006 August - The government signs a peace deal with a separatist group in the northern enclave of Cabinda.
2006 October - The UN refugee agency begins "final repatriation" of Angolans who fled the civil war to the neighbouring DR Congo.
2007 February - President dos Santos says parliamentary elections will be held in 2008 and presidential polls in 2009.
2008 September - First parliamentary elections for 16 years.
2009 March - Pope Benedict celebrates mass in front of more than a million people in Luanda.
2009 October - Angola expels illegal Congolese diamond miners. Democratic Republic of Congo responds by expelling some 20,000 Angolans.
2009 December - President dos Santos suggests presidential elections will have to wait another three years.
State oil firm Sonangol signs a deal to produce oil in Iraq.
Constitutional change
2010 January - Angola hosts African Nations Cup, continent's most popular sporting event. Bus carrying Togo football team is attacked by Cabinda separatists.
Parliament approves new constitution strengthening the presidency and abolishing direct elections for the post.
2010 September - President of DR Congo, Joseph Kabila, visits Angola. Ties between the two neighbours deteriorated in 2009 when Angola began expelling illegal Congolese immigrants and Congo retaliated.
2010 October - UN report into killing of Hutus in DR Congo between 1993 and 2003 says they may constitute "crimes of genocide". It implicates Angola, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Zimbabwe.
2010 November - Convoy carrying Chinese mine workers attacked in the region of Cabinda. A faction of the Cabinda separatist movement Flec claims responsibility.
US urges Angola to investigate alleged rape of women recently deported to DR Congo.
One of Africa's major oil producers, Angola is also one of the world's poorest countries.
