page_title: Kampala
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Kampala / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: Uganda. Kampala. The city from Cathedral Hill Abstract/medium: G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection Physical description: 1 negative&#160;:
context_page_description: Kampala is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper was estimated to have a population of 1,650,800 people on 31 July 2019 and is divided into the five boroughs of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Rubaga Division.
  Kampala's metropolitan area consists of the city proper and the neighboring Wakiso District, Mukono District, Mpigi District, Buikwe District and Luweero District. It has a rapidly growing population that is estimated at 6,709,900 people in 2019 by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics in an area of 8,451.9 km².
  In 2015, this metropolitan area generated an estimated nominal GDP of $13.80221 billion according to Xuantong Wang et al., which was more than half of Uganda's GDP for that year, indicating the importance of Kampala to Uganda's economy.
  Kampala is reported to be among the fastest-growing cities in Africa, with an annual population growth rate of 4.03 percent, by City Mayors. Kampala has been ranked the best city to live in East Africa ahead of Nairobi and Kigali by Mercer, a global development consulting agency based in New York City.
context_section_description: This area of numerous hills and swamps that later become known as Kampala was part of the core of the highly centralized Buganda Kingdom. It was also the site of the shifting Kibuga (capital) of the different Bassekabaka (kings) of the Buganda Kingdom with each Kabaka (king) upon coronation or subsequently during their reign setting up their Kibuga (capital) on a new and or different hill as they wished or desired.
  The first written description of this Kibuga (capital) was by the explorer Richard Francis Burton in his book, The Lake Region of East Africa published in 1860. In the book, Burton relying on the information collected by Snay Bin Amir, an Arab trader, described the Kibuga as
  …the settlement is not less than a day’s journey in length, the buildings are of cane and rattan. The sultan's (Kabaka) palace is at least a mile long and the circular huts neatly arranged in a line are surrounded by a strong fence which has only four gates.
  In 1862, when explorer John Speke arrived in Buganda, the Kibuga (capital) was at Bandabarogo, present-day Banda Hill, and the reigning Kabaka (King) was Mutesa I.
  In 1875, explorer Henry Morton Stanley reported the capital as being at present-day Lubaga Hill where he met the same Kabaka Mutesa I.
  During this visit, Henry Stanley Morton wrote a letter that was published in the Daily Telegraphy, inviting missionaries to come to Buganda. He also described the Kibuga in his 1870s dispatches to the New York Herald, thus:
  As we approached the capital, the highway from Usavara [Busabala] increased in width from 20 ft [6 meters] to 150 ft [45 meters]...Arrived at the capital I found the vast collection of huts crowning the eminence were the Royal Quarters, around which ran several palisades and circular courts, between which and the city was a circular road, ranging from 100 ft [30 meters] to 200 ft [60 meters]  in width with gardens and huts...
  — Bennet, N.R. (ed.) Stanley's Dispatches to the New York Herald, 1871–1872, 1874–1877, Boston, 1970.
  In 1877 the first lot of missionaries of Church Mission Society who were of the Protestant faith, arrived from the United Kingdom and were allocated Namirembe Hill. Two years later in 1879 the Catholic White Fathers missionaries also arrived, first settling at the present day village of Kitebi near Lubaga but would subsequently be allocated Lubaga Hill. The arrival of these two missionary groups laid the ground for the religious wars of 1888 to 1892 between their new converts and forced the missionaries from Britain to then lobby for the British government to take over Buganda/Uganda as a protectorate.
  In 1890 Frederick Lugard, an agent of the Imperial British East Africa Company, arrived in Buganda during the reign of Ssekabaka Mwanga II with whom he signed a treaty of protection by the British government over Buganda, and the Kibuga (capital) was at Mengo Hill. Captain Lugard would, later on, be allocated the hill that would soon be known as Old Kampala, and on which he built a fort.
  In 1895 Mengo Senior School, the first school offering Western education in Kampala, was opened by the Church Missionary Society at Namirembe hill, where mostly children of chiefs and pages of the royal palaces were the students.
  In 1897 Ssekabaka Mwanga rebelled and waged a war against British rule and was subsequently captured and deported in 1899 to the Seychelles alongside Omukama Kabalega, and his 3-year-old son was made king by the combined forces of the British officers, Nubian soldiers and Baganda collaborators. This state of affairs later culminated in the signing of the Buganda Agreement (1900) that formalized British colonial rule in Buganda.
  Also in 1897, Kampala's first Western-style health facility Mengo Hospital was opened on Namirembe hill by British doctor and missionary Sir Albert Ruskin Cook. In addition the same Dr Albert Cook would in 1913 found Mulago Hospital, the current National Referral Hospital, at Mulago hill.
  In 1899, the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa founded Lubaga Hospital on Lubaga Hill.
  In 1900, the regents of the infant king 
caption: Kampala. The city from Cathedral Hill.
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