Uganda
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The southern part of the country includes a portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania. Uganda is in the African Great Lakes region, lies within the Nile basin, and has a varied and generally modified equatorial climate. As of 2023, it has a population of around 49.6 million, of which 8.5 million live in the capital and most populous city of Kampala.
Uganda is named after the Buganda kingdom, which encompasses a portion of the south of the country, including the capital Kampala, and whose language Luganda is spoken throughout the country. From 1894, the area was ruled as a protectorate by the United Kingdom, which established administrative law across the territory. Uganda gained independence from the UK on 9 October 1962. The period since then has been marked by violent conflicts, including an 8-year-long military dictatorship led by Idi Amin. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni took power in January 1986 after a protracted 6-year guerrilla war. Following constitutional amendments that removed term limits for the president, they were able to stand and was elected president in the 2011, 2016 and 2021 general elections.
The official language is English, while the Constitution states that "any other language may be used as a medium of instruction in schools or other educational institutions or for legislative, administrative, or judicial purposes as may be prescribed by law." Luganda, a central region-based language, is spoken across the Central and South Eastern regions of the country, and other languages are spoken including Ateso, Lango, Acholi, Runyoro, Runyankole, Rukiga, Luo, Rutooro, Samia, Jopadhola, and Lusoga. In 2005 Swahili, which is foreign and so viewed as being neutral, was proposed as Uganda's second official language.
The history of Uganda comprises the history of the people who inhabited the territory of present-day Uganda before the establishment of the Republic of Uganda, and the history of that country once it was established. Evidence from the Paleolithic era shows humans have inhabited Uganda for at least 50,000 years. The forests of Uganda were gradually cleared for agriculture by people who probably spoke Central Sudanic languages.
In 1894, Uganda became a protectorate of the British Empire, and in 1962 the United Kingdom granted independence to Uganda making Sir Edward Muteesa II of Edward Muteesa Walugembe the first President of Uganda and Kabaka of Buganda. Idi Amin deposed Milton Obote to became ruler of Uganda in 1971, a position he would occupy for eight years until he was ousted in 1979 as a result of the Uganda-Tanzania War. After a series of other leaders since Amin's fall, Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986 and has led Uganda since that time.
History[edit]
Further information: Early history of Uganda
Paleolithic evidence of human activity in Uganda goes back to at least 50,000 years, and perhaps as far as 100,000 years, as shown by the Acheulean stone tools recovered from the former environs of Lake Victoria, which were exposed along the Kagera River valley, chiefly around Nsonezi.
The cultivators who gradually cleared the forest were probably Bantu-speaking people, whose slow but inexorable expansion gradually took over most of sub-Saharan Africa. They also raised goats and chickens, and they probably kept some cattle by 400 BCE. Their knowledge of agriculture and use of iron-forging technology permitted them to clear the land and feed ever larger numbers of settlers. They displaced small bands of indigenous hunter-gatherers, who relocated to the less accessible mountains.
Meanwhile, by the first century CE and possibly as early as the fourth century BCE in Western Tanzania, certain related Bantu-speaking metallurgists were perfecting iron smelting to produce medium grade carbon steel in pre-heated forced-draught furnaces. Although most of these developments were taking place southwest of modern Ugandan boundaries, iron was mined and smelted in many parts of the country not long afterward.
