Kampala City
Kampala city is Uganda’s national and commercial capital bordering lake Victoria that is Africa’s largest lake. Kampala is found in the pearl of Africa and has got wonderful hills that are covered with red-tile villas and the pure green trees surrounding an urban center of contemporary skyscrapers. In this downtown area, it is encountered with the great museum explorers which is the country’s tribal heritage through an extensive collection of the artifacts on the nearby Mengo hill is Lubiri palace, the famous seat of Buganda kingdom and Gadaffi Mosque, Old Kampala.
Other places include; Kabaka’s Palace , Idi Amin’s Torture Chambers, Bahai Temple, Namirembe Cathedral, Owino Market, Lake Victoria, Craft Markets, Entebbe Botanical Gardens, The Uganda National Museum, Rubaga Cathedral. Kampala also covers a total area of about 189 kilometers squared and most of this area is taken up by Land and this is tuaking a portion of 176 kilometers squared. Kampala city is drained by different water systems and also this in turn 13 kilometers squared of the total area is taken up by this blue waters.
Kampala city is at an elevation of about 1190 meters which is approximately 3900 feet. In 2014 a population census was carried out to find out the total number of people that are living in Kampala and the results showed that the total number of people was found to be 1,507,080 and the resulting density of the people in the great Kampala which was about 7928 kilometers squared.
Kampala city was named as the 13 fastest growing city in the whole world with an annual population growth rate of about 4.03%. By The city mayor’s it is ranked the best city in the whole of East Africa ahead of the well known Nairobi and Kigali by Mercer which is a global development consulting agency that is based in New York City.
Kampala city, and also Uganda at large were colonized by the British, and by the time of arrival of the British colonists, the Kabaka of Buganda had chosen the zone that would become Kampala as a free hunting reserve and the area composed of rolling hills that are also accompanied with grassy wetlands in the valleys. Kampala was a home to several wildlife species of all kinds of antelopes, particularly impala, when the British arrived they gave this nice place a name and they called it the hills of impala.
The language of the Baganda translated hills of the impala as Akasozi ke’Empala, kasozi meaning hill, ke also meaning of and empala which was the plural of impala.
In Luganda that is sparied to be learned by everyone, the word Kampala was adopted as the great name for the city that grew out of kibale’s hills . Kampala grew as the capital of Buganda kingdom and from which several buildings do survive not also forgetting the kasubi tombs that were built in the year of 1881.
The Lubiri palace and the Buganda parliament in consideration with the Buganda court of justice in the year of 1890. The British colonial administrator captain Frederick Luganda constructed a forum along the great Mengo hill with in the city which allowed the British to occupy much of the territory controlled by the Baganda including Kampala as well. In 1894 the British government, officially established a protectorate with in this territory and in 1896, the protectorate expanded to cover the Ankole, Toro kingdom and also the Bunyoro kingdom as well.
Kampala city also in 1905 the British government formally declared the entire territory to be a British colony and from that time until the independence of the country. The capital was relocated to Entebbe although the city continued to be the primary economic and manufacturing location of Uganda and also in 1922 the well known best university in East Africa per now, was constructed and named as Makerere Technical institute but of which now received a new glory of being known as Makerere university that started as the first collegiate institute both with in the city of Kampala and also the British colonies on the big coast of East Africa. This followed 1962 the day of glory which is the Independence Day.
Kabaka Edward Mutesa a Buganda king became the first executive president of Uganda but later overthrown by Milton Obote who was by then a prime minister and became the president of Uganda who held this position until 1971. When former sergeant ldi Amin deposed his government in a military coup and he expelled all Indian residents from Kampala.
But after all that, the city has since then been rebuilt with new construction of hotels, banks, shopping malls, education institutes, hospital and improvement of war torn buildings and infrastructure.
Traditionally, Kampala was known to be a city of seven hills and these include, the old Kampala hill, Mengo hill, kibuli hill, Namirembe hill, Nsambya hill, Nakasero hill on whose summit is fort Nakasero a British military installation built after relocation from Fort lugand in old Kampala.
Kampala city is the home of sports with the great team of city oilers which is one of East Africa’s top basketball club team , it is the only East Africa team that competed in the FIBA Africa clubs champions cup, the oilers play their home games in the MTN arena which is based in Kampala lugogo.
This being the center, there very many economic activities that are carried out but mostly the government has concentrated on the agricultural sector because Uganda is well known as the country to produce coffee. The city has got different transport means that can take you to your final destination and the most popular means is by road and the most used is the Boda boda which are taking the biggest percentage of all others. In other words they are very many in Kampala. This big city is managed by Kampala capital city authority that is in charge of its smooth development in Kampala. Kampala is pretty much like other cities across east africa such as in Rwanda, Kenya ,Tanzania and Burundi.
