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 substantial 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 but 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 largest city of Kampala.
Uganda is named after the Buganda kingdom, which encompasses a large portion of the south of the country, including the capital Kampala, and whose language Luganda is widely 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 eight-year-long military dictatorship led by Idi Amin.
The official language is English, although 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 widely spoken across the Central and South Eastern regions of the country, and several other languages are also spoken including Teso language (natively 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, but this has yet to be ratified by parliament. However, in 2022 Uganda decided to make Swahili a mandatory subject in the school curriculum.
Uganda's current president is Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who took power in January 1986 after a protracted six-year guerrilla war. Following constitutional amendments that removed term limits for the president, he was able to stand and was elected president in the 2011, 2016 and 2021 general elections. (Full article...)
The Ugandan Red Colobus is one of 13 primate species found in Kibale
Kibale National Park is a national park in western Uganda, protecting moist evergreen rainforest. It is 766 square kilometres (296 sq mi) in size and ranges between 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) and 1,600 metres (5,200 ft) in elevation. Despite encompassing primarily moist evergreen forest, it contains a diverse array of landscapes. Kibale is one of the last remaining expanses to contain both lowland and montane forests. In eastern Africa, it sustains the last significant expanse of pre-montane forest.
The park was gazetted in 1932 and formally established in 1993 to protect a large area of forest previously managed as a logged forest reserve. The park forms a continuous forest with Queen Elizabeth National Park. This adjoining of the parks creates a 180 kilometres (110 mi) wildlife corridor. It is an important ecotourism and safari destination, well-known for its population of habituated chimpanzees and twelve other species of primates. It is also the location of the Makerere University Biological Field Station. (Full article...)
Image 8An ethnolinguistic map of Uganda (from Uganda)
Image 9Forest Landscape Integrity Index 2019 map of Uganda. Forest condition measured by degree of anthropogenic modification. 0 = Most modification; 10= Least. Created in Google Earth Engine. National boundaries = LSIB 2017: Large Scale International Boundary Polygons, Detailed, US Officer of the Geographer (from Uganda)
Articles here focus upon aspects of the Uganda–Tanzania War. These are all Good articles that meet a core set of high editorial standards.
The Battle of Masaka (Kiswahili: Mapigano ya Masaka) was a battle of the Uganda–Tanzania War that took place on 23 and 24 February 1979 in the town of Masaka, Uganda. Following artillery bombardment, most of the Ugandan government forces fled and Tanzanian and Ugandan rebel forces captured the town.
Colonel Idi Amin had seized power in a military coup in Uganda in 1971 and established a brutal dictatorship. Seven years later he attempted to invade Tanzania to the south. Ugandan troops occupied the Kagera Salient and subsequently murdered local civilians and destroyed property. The attack was eventually repulsed, and Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, unsatisfied with Amin's refusal to renounce his claims to Tanzanian territory and the international community's failure to strongly condemn the invasion, ordered his forces to advance into southern Uganda with the aim of capturing the towns of Masaka and Mbarara. (Full article...)
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