Kampala & Central Uganda

The Central Region corresponds closely to the old kingdom of Buganda, which grew from a small core on the north-western shore of Lake Victoria into the strongest state in the region by the 19th century. Its kabakas ruled through appointed chiefs rather than hereditary lords, commanded canoe fleets on the lake, and moved their capital from hill to hill; Kasubi, Mengo and Rubaga all served in turn. Arab traders reached the court in the 1840s, and Protestant and Catholic missionaries followed in the late 1870s. Kabaka Mwanga II's execution of Christian converts in 1885–87, remembered as the Uganda Martyrs, was followed by civil war between Protestant, Catholic and Muslim factions.

Britain allied with Buganda, and the 1900 Buganda Agreement confirmed the kingdom's autonomy and granted land to its chiefs, giving the region a head start in schooling, cash crops and administration. Kampala grew around the Mengo court and the British fort on Old Kampala hill, while Entebbe served as the colonial capital until independence. In 1953 the British exiled Kabaka Mutesa II over his opposition to their plans, and he returned in 1955 to a hero's welcome.

After independence Mutesa II was briefly president, until Milton Obote's 1966 attack on the Mengo palace, led by Idi Amin, sent him into exile, and in 1967 a new constitution abolished the kingdom. Under Amin the palace grounds became an army barracks with detention cells, and in 1976 Israeli commandos freed hostages from a hijacked airliner at Entebbe airport. The Luweero Triangle north of Kampala was the main battlefield of the 1981–86 bush war, with very heavy civilian losses. The kingdom was restored as a cultural institution in 1993 under Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II.

The Baganda are Uganda's largest Bantu people, and Luganda is the everyday language of Kampala and much of the country's trade. Identity runs through the clans, around fifty of them, each with its own totem animal or plant that members may not eat, and through loyalty to the kabaka and the Mengo institutions: the Katikkiro, or prime minister, and the Lukiiko assembly, which meets in the Bulange building. Tension between the kingdom and the central government has flared repeatedly, most seriously in the 2009 riots after a planned royal visit to Kayunga was blocked.

Manners are formal. Greetings are long and attentive, and the kwanjula, or introduction ceremony, at which a bride's family formally receives the groom's, is often a bigger event than the wedding itself. Men wear the long white kanzu and women the gomesi, a floor-length dress with puffed shoulders and a sash, on formal occasions.

Barkcloth made from the mutuba fig tree, once the kingdom's everyday dress, is recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage. Court music survives in the amadinda and akadinda log xylophones and royal drums, and the bakisimba hip-swaying dance is performed at celebrations. Religion mixes Anglican, Catholic and Muslim communities; Namirembe and Rubaga cathedrals face each other across the city.

Kampala has around 1.7 million people within the city limits and several million in the wider metropolitan area spreading across Wakiso and Mukono districts, among the fastest-growing urban areas in Africa. Entebbe, Mukono and Masaka are the other significant towns, followed by market centres such as Mityana, Mubende and Luweero.

The capital concentrates government, banking, telecoms, universities — Makerere, founded in 1922, is among the oldest in East Africa — and most of the country's formal jobs, alongside a vast informal economy of market traders, arcade shops, mechanics and boda-boda riders. Owino (St Balikuddembe) market and the downtown taxi parks are among the busiest places in Uganda. Outside the city, Buganda's countryside grows matooke, coffee, beans and maize, and fishing communities work the lake from landing sites such as Ggaba and Kasenyi.

The day starts early to beat the traffic jams, with a rolex or a plate of katogo from a roadside stall. Evenings in Kampala run late in the bars and nightclubs of Kololo and Kabalagala. Congestion, flooding in low-lying suburbs, land disputes around the city's edges, and unemployment among young graduates are the constant local concerns, and the Ssese Islands face debate over palm-oil plantations that have replaced forest on Bugala.

This is the heartland of matooke, and Ganda cooking treats the steamed banana as the centre of the meal: bunches are peeled, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed for hours, then mashed and served with groundnut sauce, beans or stew. Luwombo is the Ganda feast dish, chicken, beef, fish or groundnut sauce slow-steamed in a banana-leaf parcel, traditionally offered to honoured guests and at the kwanjula. Katogo, matooke or cassava cooked together with offal, beans or groundnuts, is the working breakfast.

Nsenene, bush crickets or grasshoppers, swarm around the rainy seasons, especially in May and November, and are a prized seasonal delicacy; Masaka is known for them. Lake Victoria supplies tilapia and Nile perch, fried whole at Ggaba and the Entebbe landing sites, and mukene, tiny silver fish dried in the sun.

Kampala's street food adds the rolex, grilled muchomo skewers, roasted gonja plantain and samosas, while its restaurants reflect the city's Indian, Somali, Ethiopian and Congolese communities. Drinks include tonto, a traditional banana beer, and waragi gin, as well as sweet mango and passion-fruit juices.

Kampala is best understood hill by hill. The Kasubi Tombs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a great domed thatch house holding the graves of four kabakas; it burned in 2010 and has been rebuilt using traditional methods. The Mengo palace, or Lubiri, faces the Bulange across a straight royal mile, and the cells built under Amin can be visited in the palace grounds. Namirembe's Anglican and Rubaga's Catholic cathedrals, the national mosque on Old Kampala hill with views from its minaret, the Uganda Museum and the Bahá'í temple on the city's outskirts complete the circuit, with the shrines at Namugongo to the east.

Entebbe, on a peninsula in Lake Victoria, has the botanical gardens laid out in 1898, the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre and beaches on the lake. Boats run to Ngamba Island, a sanctuary for orphaned chimpanzees, and to the Mabamba wetland, where shoebills are often seen.

Further out lie the Ssese Islands, a chain of dozens of islands off the lake's north-western shore, where Bugala's sandy coves and forest make a slow retreat. East of Kampala, the road to Jinja crosses the Mabira forest, whose trails and birdlife were at the centre of mass protests in 2007 against plans to clear part of it for sugar cane. To the north, the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary in Nakasongola breeds white rhinos for their return to Uganda's parks.