**6. Conclusions**

Two high-resolution satellite images (SPOT) of 1995 and 2005 were used to map and quantify the urban growth in Kinshasa relatively quickly and with an acceptable reliability. The city spreads very quickly on its margins primarily to the east and southwest along the road to Matadi and Bandundu allowing access by public transport to the city centre which polarizes the bulk of urban employment. However, since the early 1990s, neighbourhoods are growing away from the city centre and transport routes (e.g. district Cogelo, Tchad, Mandela, Department, Plateau), yet they do not benefit from any urban convenience. The extension of the city after 1960 did not spare areas of steep slopes unfit for human settlement in the absence of a particular development. These areas are home to the poor.

By measuring the average growth rate of the population and the extension of the city over 45 years (from 1960 to 2005), it was found that it is 6.73% versus 4.21% for that of the builtup area. The average growth rate of built surface applied to the surface, built in 2005 to calculate the area built in 2009 revealed some significant errors with the figures regularly quoted.

In the future, a study could be carried out to understand the logic which pushes people to occupy the steeply sloping zones where the problem of gully erosion is acute.
