Zaire and Democratic Republic of the Congo are the same country

@Col_Needham​ 

Hi Col,

​I understand the logic of keeping them separate for historical accuracy in credits, but if we look at it from a geographical and state-continuity perspective, Zaire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the exact same country, even down to the last square kilometer of their borders.

​Actually, IMDb’s current database structure already supports this principle of continuity with other nations. For example:

​Sri Lanka vs. Ceylon: IMDb does not have a separate country entry for 'Ceylon'. Films produced during that era are categorized under Sri Lanka. Even though a film from 1960 was technically made in Ceylon, the database recognizes the geographical continuity of the island.

​Bangladesh vs. East Pakistan: Similarly, there is no separate entity for 'East Pakistan'. Credits and locations from that period (1955–1971) are integrated into Bangladesh.

​If the database already consolidates Ceylon into Sri Lanka and East Pakistan into Bangladesh, it would be inconsistent to treat Zaire as a separate entity from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In all these cases, the physical territory, the capital (like Colombo or Dhaka), and the population remained the same; only the political 'branding' changed.

​Shouldn't we maintain this consistency and treat Zaire as a historical alias of the DRC, rather than a separate country?

Burma and Myanmar and Siam and Thailand are all listed. I don't know that we can "maintain consistency", but we could perhaps achieve it.

@Peter_pbn​ 

While Myanmar and Thailand are interesting historical examples of rebranding, I think the most relevant precedent for current IMDb policy is North Macedonia. Since the name change in 2019, IMDb has consistently merged 'Macedonia' into 'North Macedonia' across the database.

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?countries=MK&sort=year,asc

​This shows that the modern standard for the database is to prioritize geographical and state continuity over historical names. If a film from 2010 is now listed under North Macedonia (even though the country didn't have that name at the time), it sets a clear rule: the entity is defined by its territory, not its temporary political label.

​Applying that same logic, Zaire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo should be treated as one. They share the exact same borders and the same capital city, just like Macedonia and North Macedonia do. Keeping Zaire as a separate country entry creates an inconsistency with the way IMDb so effectively handled the North Macedonia transition.

@plur62​ Sorry about that -- this was incorrectly marked as solved.  Since this came up during the holidays, the team concerned have not yet discussed it.  We will get back to you when they have.