The constitution of the DR Congo, adopted via referendum on 18 and 19 December 2005 and proclaimed on 18 February 2006 by the President of the Republic Joseph Kabila, stipulates that the decentralization principle is a building block of the country's institutional architecture, in the context of a united state. From a country with 11 provinces, created in 1988, the DR Congo will turn into a country with 25 provinces, plus the city of Kinshasa.

A project initiated by the Royal Museum for Central Africa, with the support of the Belgian Development Cooperation and the Belgian Science Policy, concerns the writing of monographs on the provinces. After first demarcating each of the provinces recognized by political decision, the project aims to build up real and precise knowledge of each province with the ambition of providing basic (political, economic, geographic, linguistic, social…) data promoting a far-reaching policy of environmental and regional planning.

This monograph of Maniema is the first publication in a new collection on all the provinces proclaimed in the DR Congo's Constitution.

It was in 1988 that Maniema, up to the Kivu district, became a province. Along with two other districts of the ancient Kivu, it from then on held the same rank as the Eastern Province, Equateur and Katanga.