Luanda, Angola

Luanda is the capital and largest city of the West African nation of Angola as well as its principal seaport. Once the site of a tribal community under the Kingdom of Kongo, Luanda was the administrative headquarters of the Portuguese during the nation's colonial period and has served as the government headquarters since Angola gained its independence. After enduring decades of civil war that left the city in a deteriorated state, Luanda has been undergoing revitalization in the early twenty-first century.

Landscape

Luanda is situated on the Angolan coast, which stretches approximately 1,610 kilometers (1,000.4 miles) along the Atlantic Ocean. The city is located along a narrow and relatively dry coastal zone, known colloquially as the "flat land." A small peninsula, known as the Ilha de Luanda (Island of Luanda), extends off the coast of Luanda and features numerous beaches, recreational facilities, and small fisheries.

Luanda has a tropical climate and experiences a hot, dry season from June to September and a rainy season from October to May. The temperature averages around 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) in the coastal zone, though temperatures can be higher during the dry season. The Benguela Current, an ocean current with prevailing southerly winds that passes along the west coast of Africa, reduces humidity and gives Luanda a semiarid climate during the dry season.

The urban area is generally divided into two parts, known as the Lower or Old City and the Upper City. The Lower City contains buildings and remnants from the city's Portuguese colonial period, including a number of administrative buildings used by the Portuguese government. The Lower City is also Luanda's business district, with skyscrapers, business towers, and a financial district.

The Upper City extends from the coast into the farmland and residential areas at the outer edge of Luanda and is characterized by modern architecture. The Upper City is the site of continuous construction and development to increase the city's residential and commercial capacities. Small residential communities are interspersed throughout both the Upper and Lower portions of the city, and a large majority of residents live in urban musseques, or shantytowns, in and around Luanda.

People

In 2023, Luanda's population was estimated at 9.292 million residents. Approximately 68.7 percent of the country's total population lived in Luanda or other urban centers. Most Angolans are descended from one of the Bantu peoples, including the Ovimbundu, who account for 37 percent of the population, and the Kimbundu, who account for 25 percent. Approximately 2 percent of the population is mestico, of mixed African and European descent. Luanda has communities of Cubans who remained in the city after the Angolan Civil War, as well as populations of Portuguese descent.

The official language of Angola is Portuguese. In urban areas such as Luanda, more than 90 percent of the population is fluent in Portuguese; French is also spoken to a lesser extent. Education (in Portuguese) is compulsory until age eight, and an estimated 71.1 percent of the total population was literate as of 2015. Bantu languages such as Umbundu, Kimbundu, Kikongo, Tchokwe, and Mbunda are the first languages of about 40 percent of Angolans (2013).

As the nation's largest metropolitan area, Luanda has a multicultural atmosphere when compared to other communities in Angola. There are a variety of small cafés and restaurants in downtown Luanda providing international cuisine from West African and Cuban to Italian and Chinese. Nightlife is limited but there are clubs that feature music and other performances. The national sports of Angola, football (soccer) and basketball, are major recreational activities in Luanda.

Economy

The unemployment rate in Angola in 2021 was estimated at about 8.53 percent. Since the end of the twenty-seven-year Angolan Civil War in 2002, government investment and foreign aid have helped grow the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). Nonetheless, in 2018 it was estimated that more than 32 percent of Angolans lived below the poverty line.

The petroleum industry has been the driving force behind Angola's economic revitalization and contributed 47 percent to the 2013 GDP; in fact, the petroleum export and refinement industries employ most of Luanda's industrial workers. China was Angola's largest trading partner in 2019, for both exports and imports. Another major industry in Angola is diamond mining. Though the nation has a rich mineralogical resource base, diamond and gem mining has been controversial because of the numbers of workers exploited by those that control the industry.

Agriculture is the biggest employer in the nation, accounting for more than 80 percent of the nation's workforce. Agricultural products such as bananas, sugar, coffee, sisal (a stiff fiber to make rope and rugs), corn, cotton and tobacco are shipped and processed in Luanda. The city also has a number of productive fisheries and fish processing facilities to make use of the coastal resources, though overfishing has damaged fish stocks in the coastal regions.

Landmarks

Luanda has a number of Roman Catholic churches that have become tourist attractions for their architectural and historical significance. The Church of Jesus, located in the center of downtown Luanda, was constructed in 1636 and restored after 2002. The Cathedral of Luanda, a modern worship site, is also a popular location for tourists drawn to the gardens that surround the site. On Ilha de Cabo (Island of the End) off the coast of Luanda, is the city's oldest church, which was founded by Portuguese missionaries in 1575 and still holds services for residents and visiting Catholics.

Luanda also has a number of historic military buildings left over from the colonial period. Many of the city's historic buildings are in disrepair because the government was unable to invest in infrastructure during the civil war. Since 2002, government efforts to restore historic buildings have preserved some of the city's military monuments, like the Palace of Iron, located near the coast, which features historic, baroque architecture.

Museums and cultural centers in Luanda include the National Museum of Natural History, which contains a preserved animal collection documenting the flora and fauna of Angola, and the National Museum of Anthropology, which has collections of art, clothing and tools representing Angola's tribal history. The Central Museum of the Forces Assembled is a military museum containing information on the history of Angola and Luanda from a military perspective.

Luanda has a number of beachfront recreational facilities that are popular with both residents and tourists. The Ilha de Luanda, a small peninsula in the Bay of Angola, has restaurants, resorts and recreational beaches. There are also a number of markets in downtown Luanda, where necessities, gifts and native art and handicrafts can be purchased.

History

African tribes under the distant control of the Kongo Empire were among the first to occupy Angola's coast. No single group developed a lasting settlement in the area until the sixteenth century, when the Portuguese transformed Luanda into a commercial port. Paulo Dias de Novais, a Portuguese explorer, was the first to visit the city in 1575. The term loanda, meaning "tax," was chosen by de Novais in reference to the shells found in the bay, which the king of Kongo used as a form of currency.

The Portuguese established a missionary community in Luanda and, in 1627, a colonial town and administrative headquarters. Within twenty years Luanda had become a major hub in the slave trade with Brazil. Superior weaponry and the threat of foreign invasion allowed a relatively small number of Portuguese colonists to dominate the local African tribes.

In 1641, Dutch forces captured the city from the Portuguese, taking advantage of the political chaos in Portugal after the unexpected death of the Portuguese king. The Dutch invasion was made possible through alliances with several local tribes opposed to Portuguese control. However, after seven years, Portugal's government stabilized, and a fleet was dispatched to reclaim Angola; Portugal regained control of Luanda in 1648.

In the 1950s and 1960s an independence movement emerged and expanded until supporters engaged in skirmishes with Portuguese forces. The Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA), was the most important pro-independence organization and had roots in Luanda, where several historic skirmished took place. Portugal brought hundreds of soldiers to the city to avoid a popular uprising but were unable to defeat the growing number of independence soldiers and eventually evacuated in the city.

At the time of independence in 1975, Luanda was a well-developed city, having enjoyed decades of infrastructural investment by the Portuguese. The struggle for independence left portions of the city damaged and, without the engineering expertise of the Portuguese, the city's infrastructure and workforce deteriorated.

During the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), the city escaped destruction but the government of Angola was unable to provide the resources necessary to restore Luanda. An influx of Cuban soldiers, some with skill in civil engineering, bolstered the city's population and helped initiate a new restoration program. By the twenty-first century, as the civil war was coming to an end, most of Luanda's population lived in makeshift housing at the edges of the city, and many of the city's major structures and utility systems were in disrepair.

After the war, investment in Luanda resumed and reconstruction efforts improved. The city's population grew rapidly in the period from 1995 to 2007. Improvements to basic services are still needed, and much of the city's population still lives in musseque communities. Despite this, the BBC reported in February 2012 that Luanda was the most expensive city in the world in terms of cost of living.

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