Bwindi, the Rwenzoris & the West

The west was the core of the interlacustrine kingdoms. Bunyoro-Kitara, ruled by the Babiito dynasty, dominated the region between Lakes Albert and Kyoga for centuries, and oral tradition traces its kings back to the earlier Bachwezi, linked to the earthworks at Bigo. Tooro broke away from Bunyoro in the 1830s, and to the south the kingdom of Ankole grew around a cattle-owning Bahima aristocracy ruling over the farming Bairu, while the Bakiga of Kigezi lived in clans without kings.

In the 1890s Bunyoro's Omukama Kabalega resisted the British and their Ganda allies for most of a decade before his capture in 1899. As punishment, the British gave a large part of Bunyoro to Buganda; these "lost counties" remained a grievance until a 1964 referendum returned two of them. Tooro and Ankole signed agreements with the British around 1900, and Fort Portal grew around the fort named after the British consul Gerald Portal.

After independence the kingdoms were abolished in 1967, and Tooro and Bunyoro were restored as cultural kingdoms in 1993, while Ankole's has not been. The region's best-known son is President Museveni, who comes from Ankole and led the National Resistance Army to power in 1986. The Rwenzururu movement of the Bakonzo, who sought separation from Tooro, led a long rebellion in the mountains from the 1960s and gained a recognised kingdom in 2008; deadly clashes between its royal guards and the security forces in Kasese in 2016 led to the king's arrest. The ADF emerged near the Rwenzoris in the 1990s and killed dozens of students at Kichwamba technical college in 1998.

The west speaks related Bantu languages: Runyoro and Rutooro, very close to each other, Runyankore and Rukiga in the south, Lukonzo in the Rwenzoris and Rufumbira around Kisoro. Banyoro and Batooro share the empaako, a set of pet names given to children alongside their other names and used in greetings to show respect and affection, recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage.

Cattle define Ankole. Its long-horned Ankole cows, with huge curving horns, are admired for their beauty as much as their milk, praised in poetry, and at the heart of marriage negotiations. The ekitaguriro, or cow dance, celebrates cattle and prosperity at weddings and other gatherings. Tooro's king, Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru, came to the throne as a small child in 1995 and reigned until his death in 2026, and the Omukama of Bunyoro reigns over Hoima, Masindi and neighbouring districts; coronation anniversaries are occasions for music and gatherings.

The Batwa, forest hunter-gatherers who lived in Bwindi and Mgahinga until those forests became national parks in 1991, now live on the edges of the parks, and their struggle for land and recognition is a continuing issue. Christianity is dominant, with strong Anglican and Catholic communities in Kigezi and Ankole.

Mbarara is the largest city in the west and the second largest in Uganda, a commercial hub for cattle, milk and trade with Rwanda and Tanzania. Fort Portal, Hoima, Kasese, Masindi, Kabale and Bushenyi are the other main towns. The region is one of the most productive in Uganda, and its highlands are densely populated, above all in Kigezi, where steep hillsides are terraced to the top.

Ankole is Uganda's dairy basin, with milk processing around Mbarara. Tea covers the hills of Tooro around Fort Portal, bananas and coffee grow everywhere, Kigezi farms potatoes, sorghum and vegetables, and Kasese has cotton and the old Kilembe copper mine. Around Lake Albert, oil fields in Buliisa and Kikuube are being developed alongside a planned refinery near Hoima and the start of a pipeline to the Tanzanian coast, bringing new roads, compensation disputes and debate about the risks to Murchison Falls and the lake.

The region also hosts large refugee settlements, among them Nakivale in Isingiro, one of the oldest in Uganda, and Kyangwali near Lake Albert. Days follow the milking and the market, and tourism supports a network of lodges, guides and craft co-operatives around the parks.

Western cooking is richer in dairy than anywhere else in Uganda. Eshabwe, a Banyankole speciality, is a sauce of ghee served as a condiment with matooke, millet bread, potatoes or beans, traditionally at weddings and other ceremonies. Ghee is also used to cook and as a gift, and fresh and soured milk is drunk throughout the day in Ankole.

Tooro is known for firinda, a mash of beans cooked soft with their skins removed, to which smoked or dried fish is often added. In Kigezi the staples are sorghum, Irish potatoes and beans, and a typical drink is obushera, the fermented sorghum and millet drinks of western Uganda, taken mildly sweet or fermented longer into a beer. Bunyoro and Tooro brew banana beer and waragi from bananas.

Tea from the Tooro estates is served strong with milk, and Lake Bunyonyi, which had no fish or crayfish of its own, has been stocked with tilapia, catfish and introduced crayfish. Tilapia from Lake George and the Kazinga Channel, and grilled goat from roadside barbecues, round out the everyday table.

The south-west holds the mountain gorillas. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, protects steep, ancient forest where habituated gorilla groups are tracked from four sectors, and nearby Mgahinga, on the flanks of the Virunga volcanoes above Kisoro, adds golden monkeys and climbs of Muhavura and Sabinyo. Lake Bunyonyi, near Kabale, is a lake of 29 islands and terraced shores, with boat trips, swimming and Akampene, the small "punishment island" where unmarried pregnant girls were once abandoned.

Queen Elizabeth National Park spreads across the Rift floor between Lakes George and Edward: boat trips on the Kazinga Channel pass herds of hippos and buffalo, Ishasha's lions climb fig trees, Kyambura gorge hides a chimpanzee group, and Katwe's crater lakes are worked for salt.

Further north, the Rwenzori Mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, rise to Margherita Peak on the Congo border through giant heather, lobelias and groundsels to shrinking glaciers. Fort Portal's district holds more than fifty crater lakes among its tea estates, with Kibale's chimpanzees and the hot springs of Semuliki National Park close by. Beyond lie the southern bank of Murchison Falls National Park, Budongo forest, Lake Albert and Lake Mburo's zebras and impala in Ankole, about 30 kilometres east of Mbarara.