Buganda’s namesake republic still seats Kampala by the lakes
Uganda, a landlocked East African republic, borders Kenya, South Sudan, DRC, Rwanda, and Tanzania, with a substantial share of Lake Victoria in the south. Named for the Buganda kingdom around Kampala, it keeps English and Swahili official while Luganda thrives; independence in 1962 brought Milton Obote as first prime minister.
Some 45.9 million people lived in Uganda in 2024, about 1.8 million of them in Kampala, and the country sits within the Nile basin sharing Lake Victoria, which only one other freshwater lake on Earth exceeds in size. Central Sudanic and Kuliak farmers and herders held most of the land until Bantu speakers reached the south and Nilotic speakers the northeast around 3,000 years ago. The Empire of Kitara stretched from Lakes Albert and Kyoga to Victoria and Tanganyika and is claimed as ancestor of the Tooro, Ankole and Busoga kingdoms.
Arab traders arrived from the coast in the 1830s. In 1869 Egypt's khedive sent Samuel Baker north to annex territory and suppress slaving; the Banyoro fought him off, and his widely read denunciation prejudiced the British, who later handed half of Bunyoro's land to Buganda. Anglican missionaries reached Buganda in 1877 and Catholics in 1879, and in 1885 Kabaka Mwanga's hostility to Christianity produced the Uganda Martyrs.
Wars between Muslims and Christians, and then between Protestant and Catholic factions nicknamed after Britain and France, bankrupted the chartered company, and Britain declared a protectorate in 1894, later extending it by treaties with Toro, Ankole and Bunyoro. About 32,000 indentured Indian labourers built the Uganda Railway, and 6,724 stayed on. Sleeping sickness killed over 250,000 people along Lake Victoria's northern shore between 1900 and 1920.
Independence on 9 October 1962 brought a coalition in which Obote governed while the Kabaka Muteesa II served as ceremonial president; Kabaka Yekka took all 21 Buganda seats. Idi Amin ruled brutally from 1971 until Tanzanian forces helped oust him in 1979. After Obote's disputed return in 1980, a six-year guerrilla war ended with Yoweri Museveni taking power in 1986, and he has kept winning elections through 2026.
Source: Uganda
