Spanish was the administrative language of the territory of Spanish Guinea before its independence from Spain as the Republic of Equatorial Guinea in 1968. The Constitution of Equatorial Guinea codifies the status of Spanish as a national official language.[3]
In 2007, the Real Academia Española invited two academics from the National University of Equatorial Guinea to its international summit with the intent that they serve as representatives of their country to the RAE.[6] In July 2009, the RAE named a further five Equatoguineans as "Academic Correspondents", including artist Leandro Mbomio Nsue, with a stated goal of creating an Equatoguinean Spanish academy in the future.[7][8][9]
Subsequently, the institution was officially established in October 2013 by Presidential Decree number 163/2013.[10] It was also announced that the official RAE dictionary of Spanish would, for the first time, include selected words of Equatoguinean origin.[11][12]
At the international summit of the Association of Spanish Language Academies in Puerto Rico in 2015, the Equatoguinean Academy of the Spanish Language made a formal request to join the association.[2][13][14][15] The admission was finalized in 2016.[1]