The Congo Free State was a large area in Central Africa that was privately controlled by Leopold II of Belgium. Leopold was able to procure the region by convincing the European community that he was involved in humanitarian and philanthropic work; through the use of several smokescreen organizations he was able to lay claim to most of the Congo Basin. Leopold eventually allowed the concept of a philanthropic International Association of the Congo involved in the Congo to end. On May 29, 1885, the king named his new colony the Congo Free State. The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908.