Avenida Comandante Valódia
Avenida Comandante Valódia also known as Bairro dos Combatentes is a residential area neighborhood in Luanda's central municipality of Sambizanga in Luanda province of Angola, and is centered on a busy interchange. It has a length of 1.61 km ² and about 144,000 inhabitants and is split in both ways, it is bordered to the west by Kinaxixi, on the north by Marçal, in the east by São Paulo, and south by Avenida Brasil. It has the following coordinates: Latitude: -8°49'5.88" and Longitude: 13°14'51.36. The neighborhood is known for its office and residential buildings, and is also home to the famous Hotel Tròpico, the renowned 147 public school and the now defunct Feira Ngoma.
Name
According to Angolan historian Paulo Azevedo, the name of the neighborhood was given by the Angolan government in honour of a lieutenant in the Angolan army named Valódia who was one of the prominent generals during the Angolan War of Independence.History
Early history and development
Originally named Bairro dos Combatantes da Primeira Guerra Mundial, the neighborhood was founded by the Portuguese government in 1970 during the colonial period to support the families of the Portuguese colonial army during the Angolan War of Independence.When Angola regained independence from Portugal in 1975, it was renamed, and the population at the time comprised only people of Caucasian race with only a handful of people of different races that inhabited this residential area. As the war for independence started to reach its end, fearing reprisal from the native population, the Portuguese contingent started to flee and only 5% remained of the total population with Portuguese ancestry. After a redevelopment in the late 1980s, Avenida Comandante Valòdia became one of the busiest parts of the Sambizanga municipality.