Lubango
Lubango is the capital city of the Angolan province of Huíla. Its last known population was 100,757; until 1975, the city's official name was Sá da Bandeira. In 1882 one thousand of Portuguese settlers came from the island of Madeira to the area of current-day Lubango, Angola; these Portuguese farmers confiscated the land of the indigenous population and developed the economy of the area to suit their economic interests, founding a whites only settlement, reducing those living on the land to servitude. The city established in 1885 to serve colonists from the Madeira Islands, lies at an elevation of 1,760 metres in a valley of the Huíla Plateau and was surrounded by a scenic park spreading up the mountain slopes. By 1910 there were over 1,700 ethnic Portuguese living in the settlement, referred to as "Lubango". By 1923 the Moçâmedes Railway had connected the settlement to the town of Moçâmedes in the coast; the Portuguese government made it a city and renamed it "Sá da Bandeira", after Bernardo de Sá, 1st Marquess of Sá da Bandeira.
Once the major centre of Portuguese settlement in the hinterland of southern Angola which forcibly transplanted the cattle herding, agrarian based culture and economy of the indigenous people living there prior to colonialism, it was built in a Portuguese style of architecture, with a cathedral, commerce hall, industrial hall, a secondary school, like every Portuguese city or town in the mainland and the overseas territories, it would have the Portuguese town hall, the hospital and the typical CTT post office, besides banking and other services to suit the needs of the white population. The city developed as an agricultural and transportation centre, with its own airport and railway station, as well as major maintenance and repair facilities for them. Land ownership in Lubango was reserved for the white population. Several Basters emigrated from Namibia to Angola and settled in Lubango, where they are known as the Ouivamo. Many of them were forced to return to Namibia between 1930 by white South Africans.
In 1951, the Portuguese colony of Angola was rebranded the Overseas Province of Angola. After Angola's Independence from Portugal due to the events of the April 25, 1974 Carnation Revolution in Lisbon, the city was once again renamed Lubango. During the Angolan Civil War, Lubango served as a major base of Cuban, government troops, its once thriving economy plummeted. Lubango's economy is based on agriculture meat products, sisal, tobacco and vegetables produced in the surrounding fertile region. Food processing, leather tanning, consumer goods industries dominate the industrial sector. A number of Angolan banks like BAI or BPC offer good financial services and it is possible to receive funds from outside Angola by way of Electronic fund transfer into these banks. ATM's are available around the city but they disburse Kwanza, the local currency. In the markets US Dollars or Kwanza both are acceptable; the main shopping plaza in Lubango is a newly built Mall called "Milleneum" where most products of daily use as well as other products like cosmetics, clothes etc. are available.
Lubango is the site of a major airport and headquarters for a fighter bomber regiment of the Angolan Air Force. The airport receives daily flights from Luanda through TAAG, the Angolan airline and thrice a week from Windhoek, Namibia; the town is served by the Moçâmedes Railway known as CFM. It is the junction for the branch railway to Chiange; the town is serviced by taxis which run in circles around the city. One can hire personal taxis which are marked "PARTICULAR". Walking around town is a good way to explore Lubango. Bus services are available from Lubito and the buses run by a firm called "SGO" are pretty comfortable; the town has a Portuguese international school, the Escola Portuguesa do Lubango, the Instituto Superior Politécnico Gregório Semedo that offers degree courses in various disciplines. With an altitude of 1,760 metres above sea level, Lubango is one of the highest places in Angola; the city features a subtropical highland climate under the Köppen climate classification. The climate is hot and humid during the day and cool to cold at night, the annual average temperature is 18.6 °C, though there are extremes of 0 to 34.4 °C.
June and July are cold when frosts are albeit rare. The heaviest rains are between December and March and the warmest months are September and October; the city is regarded as the coldest city in Angola, with registered temperatures of −2 °C. Marco Abreu and member of the Angola national football team. Railway stations in Angola Media related to Lubango at Wikimedia Commons
Angola
Angola the Republic of Angola, is a west-coast country of south-central Africa. It is the seventh-largest country in Africa, bordered by Namibia to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Angola has an exclave province, the province of Cabinda that borders the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the capital and largest city of Angola is Luanda. Although inhabited since the Paleolithic Era, what is now Angola was molded by Portuguese colonisation, it began with, was for centuries limited to, coastal settlements and trading posts established starting in the 16th century. In the 19th century, European settlers and hesitantly began to establish themselves in the interior; the Portuguese colony that became Angola did not have its present borders until the early 20th century because of resistance by groups such as the Cuamato, the Kwanyama and the Mbunda. After a protracted anti-colonial struggle, independence was achieved in 1975 as the Marxist–Leninist People's Republic of Angola, a one-party state supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba.
The civil war between the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola and the insurgent anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, supported by the United States and South Africa, lasted until 2002. The sovereign state has since become a stable unitary, presidential constitutional republic. Angola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, its economy is among the fastest-growing in the world since the end of the civil war. Angola's economic growth is uneven, with most of the nation's wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population. Angola is a member state of the United Nations, OPEC, African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Southern African Development Community. A multiethnic country, Angola's 25.8 million people span tribal groups and traditions. Angolan culture reflects centuries of Portuguese rule, in the predominance of the Portuguese language and of the Catholic Church; the name Angola comes from the Portuguese colonial name Reino de Angola, which appeared as early as Dias de Novais's 1571 charter.
The toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title ngola held by the kings of Ndongo. Ndongo in the highlands, between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers, was nominally a possession of the Kingdom of Kongo, but was seeking greater independence in the 16th century. Modern Angola was populated predominantly by nomadic Khoi and San prior to the first Bantu migrations; the Khoi and San peoples hunter-gatherers. They were displaced by Bantu peoples arriving from the north, most of whom originated in what is today northwestern Nigeria and southern Niger. Bantu speakers introduced the cultivation of bananas and taro, as well as large cattle herds, to Angola's central highlands and the Luanda plain. Hendese Bantu established a number of political entities, it established trade routes with other city-states and civilisations up and down the coast of southwestern and western Africa and with Great Zimbabwe and the Mutapa Empire, although it engaged in little or no transoceanic trade. To its south lay the Kingdom of Ndongo, from which the area of the Portuguese colony was sometimes known as Dongo.
Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão reached the area in 1484. The previous year, the Portuguese had established relations with the Kongo, which stretched at the time from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south; the Portuguese established their primary early trading post at Soyo, now the northernmost city in Angola apart from the Cabinda exclave. Paulo Dias de Novais founded São Paulo de Loanda in 1575 with a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Benguela was fortified in 1587 and became a township in 1617; the Portuguese established several other settlements and trading posts along the Angolan coast, principally trading in Angolan slaves for Brazilian plantations. Local slave dealers provided a large number of slaves for the Portuguese Empire in exchange for manufactured goods from Europe; this part of the Atlantic slave trade continued until after Brazil's independence in the 1820s. Despite Portugal's territorial claims in Angola, its control over much of the country's vast interior was minimal.
In the 16th century Portugal gained control of the coast through a series of wars. Life for European colonists was progress slow. John Iliffe notes that "Portuguese records of Angola from the 16th century show that a great famine occurred on average every seventy years. During the Portuguese Restoration War, the Dutch West India Company occupied the principal settlement of Luanda in 1641, using alliances with local peoples to carry out attacks against Portuguese holdings elsewhere. A fleet under Salvador de Sá retook Luanda in 1648. New treaties with the Kongo were signed in 1649.
Rail transport in Angola
Rail transport in Angola consists of three separate Cape gauge lines that do not connect: the northern Luanda Railway, the central Benguela Railway, the southern Moçâmedes Railway. The lines each connect the Atlantic coast to the interior of the country. A fourth system once is no longer operational. Railway construction began in Angola in 1887; the Luanda Railway opened in 1889, the Moçâmedes Railway opened in 1910, the Benguela Railway opened in 1912. The railways continued to be extended inland until 1961, when the Moçâmedes Railway reached Menongue. After Angola attained its independence from Portugal in 1975, the Angolan Civil War broke out and lasted until 2002; the prolonged fighting resulted in the destruction of most of Angola's railway infrastructure. The rebels blew up bridges, tore up track, sabotaged the right of way with land mines to prevent the railway from being restored; when the fighting ended, the Angolan government sought to restore service on the railways. Contracts were awarded to the state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation Limited to rebuild the Luanda Railway and the Benguela Railway.
A owned Chinese mining company rebuilt the Moçâmedes Railway. All three colonial-era Cape gauge lines had been rebuilt by 2015. Total: 2,761 km narrow gauge: 2,638 km of 1,067 mm there is 123 km of 600 mm gauge The Benguela Railway connects to the Katanga Railway at the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the first train reached the border town of Luau in August 2013. However, the Congolese railways are in a deteriorated state and no through services are available as of 2015. Passengers and freight must use trucks to reach destinations in Congo. Brakes: Air Couplers: AAR After the end of the civil war, the government could start to plan both the rehabilitation of the "network" inherited from the colonial power and destroyed by the civil war, its extension by building new lines, interconnecting the existing lines and connecting with all neighbouring countries. If and when completed, this would result in a grid of three east-west lines and three north-south lines, linking all 18 provinces to the railway network.
This plan is known by the name Ango-Ferro. Related to the program to rehabilitate the network inherited from colonial times and the project to build new lines, the institutional framework of railway operations was changed in a series of presidential decrees in 2010; as public administration to oversee, regulate and licence railway companies and rolling stock, the Instituto Nacional dos Caminhos de Ferro de Angola was created out of the Directorate of Terrestrial Transport within the transport ministry. All railway infrastructure, tracks, maintenance facilities etc. were declared to be in the public domain controlled by the state. The three railway companies became Empresa publica, government operated enterprises reporting to the transport ministry; the infrastructure was separated from the operation of the trains, opening up the possibility that private companies could run trains in the future. Most railways in the SADC countries run on Cape gauge 1,067 mm, which facilitates the planned integration of the planned Angola railway network with the neighboring countries without forcing trans-shipments at border crossings.
This involved the technical interoperability of rolling stock, that led to the adoption of the AAR coupler, in use in South Africa for a long time already. The Southern African Railways Association is a body for this standardisation; the current three Angolan railway companies are members of SARA. The plan involves eight new lines: This line would start at downtown Luanda and reach the Congo mouth at Soyo and Cabinda via a wide Eastward curve passing via Caxito, Quibaxe, Dange, Uíge, Lucunga, Zaire, M'banza-Kongo, Lufico to Soyo; the line shall cross the Congo river between Soyo and Munanda, cross for about 40 km the RDC to enter Angolan territory again in Cabinda province at Imã to reach Cabinda city, continue from there via Landana, Buco Zau, Cabinda to Miconje, where it is to connect with the rail network of Congo Brazzaville. This line would total about 950 kilometers. A feasibility study is being undertaken now; this line was discussed in 2008. In an earlier document from the transport ministry, there was a border crossing to RDC planned further up-stream, where the Congo river is not so wide and where the RDC/Angola border moves away from the river bank, i.e. at Noqui and Matadi.
This would branch off the Benguela railway at Luacano and go south-east via Lago Dilolo, Moxico, Cazombo and Calunda to Macongo, where it would link to the line serving a new mine at Lumwana in Zambia. This line would be about 306 km long. A feasibility study is pending; this link of 343 km would start from the CFM at Cuvango and to south via Cassai, Cuvelai, Evale, Ondjiva to Namacunde, where it would connect with the Namibian line Tsumeb to Oshikango. This link had been discussed during a state visit of the Angolan president in Windhoek in October 2007. A feasibility study is pending; the Luanda railway shall be extended beyond Malanje by 527 km via Caculama, Xá Muteba, Camulemba, Cacolo, to Saurimo in Lunda Sul province. There it would link with the Eastern north-south line, specified in the next section. A feasibility study is pending; this new line would extend 1353 km from North to South, beginning at the border with R. D. Congo at Chitato via
Chipindo
Chipindo is a town and municipality in the province of Huíla, Angola. It is situated 450 km North of Huila province capital. With an extension of 3.898 km2, a density of population of 16 inhabitants per km2, it is limited with the towns of Caála and Tchicala Tcholoanga in Huambo Province in the North, with Jamba town in the South, with Kuvango in the East and with Caconda and Chicomba in the West. Its population is estimated in 33.244 inhabitants. Distributed in two comunas, Chipindo Sede and Bambi, that are constituited by seven regedorías, Camoanha, Capembe e Bundjei, Bambi sede, a great number of aldeias in each comuna. During the raining season traffic is reduced due to the bad shape of the roads, it has a small landing runway. Chipindo has a subtropical highland climate with two differentiated seasons, a wet season from October to April and a dry season from May to September. Temperatures are somewhat lower during the dry season. Mother tongue of most of the population is Umbundu, spoken by the majority of Umbundu people, although it exist a part of the population belonging to Gangela people in the West, close to Kuvango.
The population is in its majority of strong traditional beliefs. Since the end of the war, for the first time in 14 years, since March 19, 2002, a local administration was established. CHIPINDO SEDE: town center. Local Administration, Catholic church, Health center and Hospital. Aldea de Mbuandangui: 2 km from Chipindo sede, Action Against Hunger base. Regidurias: Sangueve, Tchitata and Bundjei. BAMBI: South of the town. Health post. Regidurias: Catapua, Bambi sede. Bundjei: North of the town. Health center
Huíla Province
Huíla is a province of Angola. It has an area of 79,023 square kilometres and a population of 2,354,398. Lubango is the capital of the province. Basket-making is a significant industry in the province. From the Portuguese Colonial War to Angola's independence, the subsequent civil war in Angola Huíla was directly affected only during short periods of time. Cassinga was abandoned by its European supervisors, the mine fell into neglect during the ensuing Angolan Civil War; the following year it was occupied by the People's Liberation Army of Namibia, military wing of the South West African People's Organization. PLAN subsequently adopted Cassinga as a staging point for insurgent raids on South-West Africa, about 250 kilometres to the south, their bases soon became a sanctuary for local refugees during the Namibian War of Independence. In 1978, PLAN's presence in Cassinga attracted the attention of the South African Defence Force. Operation Reindeer saw paratroops of the 44 Parachute Regiment supported by bomber and strike aircraft launch an air assault on 4 May.
The six-hour assault claimed 600 lives, including four SADF soldiers, sixty Cuban soldiers and over five hundred PLAN combatants and South West African exiles. Cassinga was the site of more fighting during Operation Askari, in December 1983; the post-colonial development in Angola has seen the establishment of two universities in Lubango (the state Universidade Mandume, named after a leader of the Ovambo in the fight against the occupation by the Portuguese, as well as a campus of the Universidade Privada de Angola. Tourism is emerging involving white entrepreneurs from Namibia, which the provincial government is seeking to attract. Huíla Province is traversed by the northwesterly line of equal latitude; the province is bordered on the west by the provinces of Namibe and Benguela, to the north by Bié and Cuando Cubango, to the south by the province of Cunene. The winding road known as Leba Hill, as well as Bicauri National Park are in Huíla Province. Bicauri National Park was established in 1964 and covers an area of 790 km².
Huíla Province is divided into fourteen municipalities. The province additionally has 39 towns; as of 2013, the province had a population of 2,609,486 people. The original inhabitants of the area were Khoisan, but only a few residual groups remain today, ousted from pastoral land by other groups. In some areas they represent under 2% of the population. Most pastoral farmers in the province are known Nyaneka-Khumbi, but do not form a whole ethnic group. A significant ethnic group in the province is the Mwila, who inhabited the plateau areas. Favored by the mild climate, there was a strong colonization by Portuguese immigrants who sometimes mixed with the local population; this led to expansion and diversification of agriculture at the same time, but to a growth of cities and towns. However, the influx of IDPs in the thousands during the war affected the province. During the war, a considerable number of Ovimbundu fled to the highlands of the province of Huíla. In some areas they now represent some 37% of the population, with the largest concentration in the central highlands.
There is now a much smaller number of Bakongo, assimilated from the Congo, some settled in the province upon their return. The Heroro represent about 0.5% of the population. Up to 1991, the official name was Provincial Commissioner Official website of province governor Information on this province at the Angolan ministry for territorial administration Information on this province at Info Angola Province geographical info at geoview.info
Angola