Kampala, Uganda


Capital and largest city of Uganda. It occupies a series of hills at an elevation of about 1,190 m and is situated in the southern part of the country, just north of Lake Victoria. Lying just north of Mengo, the capital of the kingdom of Buganda in the 19th century, it was selected in 1890 as the headquarters of the Imperial British East Africa Company. In 1905 the Ugandan colonial administrative headquarters was moved to Entebbe. In 1962 Kampala (a municipality since 1949) became the capital of independent Uganda. Parliamentary and commercial buildings, industry, and residential areas are separated into sectors.

Situated in the country's most prosperous agricultural section, Kampala exports coffee, cotton, tea, tobacco, and sugar. Although second industrially to Jinja (64 km east-northeast), the city has numerous food, metal-products, and furniture enterprises and a tractor-assembly plant. It is the headquarters for most of Uganda's large firms and the chief market for the Lake Victoria region. Kampala has a technical institute and is the seat of Makerere University, which was founded in 1922 and became a university college in 1949 and a university in 1970. Kampala also has the Uganda Museum. The city is home to several mosques, Hindu temples, and Christian churches. Pop. (1998 est.) 1,154,000. [—Adapted from Encyclopedia Britannica, 2004]

Skyline

Kampala road

Kampala road is the "main street" of downtown Kampala

Kampala road

City center

Swami Narayan temple

Hindu temple

Kampala road

Kampala road

Kasubi tombs

First built in 1881, this building hosts the tombs and other possessions of the kabakas (kings) of the Buganda people.

Reed and bark cloth building

The tombs have been meticulously cared for by the Ganda clans for generations.

History lesson

A breezy update on folks like Muteesa I, his son Mwanga, Sir Daudi Chwa II, and his son Edward Muteesa II, father of the current kabaka, Ronald Mutebi II.

Local art

Batik prints depicting mundane activies

Kabaka's palace

National Court

Bugandan parliament

Old taxi park

 



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