Luanda

Luanda is the capital and largest city of Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Angola's administrative centre, its chief seaport, and also the capital of the Luanda Province. Luanda and its metropolitan area is the most populous Portuguese-speaking national capital in the world and the most populous Lusophone city outside Brazil. In 2024 the population reached more than 8.8 million inhabitants.
Among the oldest colonial cities of Africa, Luanda was founded in January 1576 as São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda by Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais, being occasionally called "Leonda" or "St Paul de Leonda" by non-Portuguese sources. The city served as the centre of the slave trade to Brazil before the institution was prohibited.
At the start of the Angolan Civil War in 1975, most of the white Portuguese left as refugees, principally migrating to Portugal. Luanda's population increased greatly from internal refugees fleeing the war, but its infrastructure was inadequate to handle the increase. This also caused the exacerbation of slums, or musseques, around Luanda.
In the 21st century, the city has been undergoing a major reconstruction. Many new large developments are taking place that will alter its cityscape significantly.
Industries present in the city include the processing of agricultural products, beverage production, textile, cement, new car assembly plants, construction materials, plastics, metallurgy, cigarettes and shoes. The city is also notable as an economic centre for oil, and a refinery is located in the city.
Luanda has been ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the world for expatriates. The inhabitants of Luanda are mostly members of the ethnic Ambundu people. In recent decades of the 21st century, the number of ethnic Bakongo and Ovimbundu have also increased. Ethnic Europeans are mainly Portuguese.
Luanda was the main host city for the matches of the 2010 African Cup of Nations.

History

Portuguese colonization

explorer Paulo Dias de Novais founded Luanda on 25 January 1576 as "São Paulo da Assumpção de Loanda". He had brought one hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Most of the Portuguese community lived within the fort. Several sources from as early as the 17th century called the city "St. Paul de Leonda".
In 1618, the Portuguese built the fortress called Fortaleza São Pedro da Barra, and they subsequently built two more: Fortaleza de São Miguel and Forte de São Francisco do Penedo. Of these, the Fortaleza de São Miguel is the best preserved.
Luanda was Portugal's bridgehead from 1627, except during the Dutch rule of Luanda, from 1640 to 1648, as Fort Aardenburgh. The city served as the centre of slave trade to Brazil from to 1836. The slave trade was conducted mostly with the Portuguese colony of Brazil; Brazilian ships were the most numerous in the port of Luanda. This slave trade also involved local merchants and warriors who profited from the trade. During this period, no large scale territorial conquest was intended by the Portuguese; only a few minor settlements were established in the immediate hinterland of Luanda, some on the last stretch of the Kwanza River.
In the 17th century, the Imbangala became the main rivals of the Mbundu in supplying slaves to the Luanda market. In the 1751, between 5,000 and 10,000 slaves were annually sold. By this time, Angola, a Portuguese colony, was in fact like a colony of Brazil, paradoxically another Portuguese colony. A strong degree of Brazilian influence was noted in Luanda until the Independence of Brazil in 1822.
In the 19th century, still under Portuguese rule, Luanda experienced a major economic revolution. The slave trade was abolished in 1836, and in 1844, Angola's ports were opened to foreign shipping. By 1850, Luanda was one of the greatest and most developed Portuguese cities in the vast Portuguese Empire outside Continental Portugal, full of trading companies, exporting palm and peanut oil, wax, copal, timber, ivory, cotton, coffee, and cocoa, among many other products. Maize, tobacco, dried meat, and cassava flour are also produced locally. The Angolan bourgeoisie was born by this time.
In 1889, Governor Brito Capelo opened the gates of an aqueduct which supplied the city with water, a formerly scarce resource, laying the foundation for major growth.

Estado Novo

Throughout Portugal's dictatorship, known as the Estado Novo, Luanda grew from a town of 61,208 with 14.6% of those inhabitants being white in 1940, to a wealthy cosmopolitan major city of 475,328 in 1970 with 124,814 Europeans and around 50,000 mixed race inhabitants.
Like most of Portuguese Angola, the cosmopolitan city of Luanda was not affected by the Portuguese Colonial War ; economic growth and development in the entire region reached record highs during this period. In 1982, a report called Luanda the "Paris of Africa".

Independence

By the time of Angolan independence in 1975, Luanda was a modern city with the majority of its population being African, but also dominated by a strong minority of white Portuguese origin.
After the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon on April 25, 1974, with the advent of independence and the start of the Angolan Civil War, most of the white Portuguese Luandans left as refugees, principally for Portugal, however many travelled over land to South Africa.
The large numbers of skilled technicians among the force of Cuban soldiers sent in to support the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola government in the Angolan Civil War were able to make a valuable contribution to restoring and maintaining basic services in the city.
In the following years, however, slums called musseques—which had existed for decades—began to grow out of proportion and stretched several kilometres beyond Luanda's former city limits as a result of the decades-long civil war, and because of the rise of deep social inequalities due to large-scale migration of civil war refugees from other Angolan regions. For decades, Luanda's facilities were not adequately expanded to handle this huge increase in the city's population.

21st century

In 2001 the provisional Angolan governments cleared the Boavista slum in Luanda Bay so that a luxury housing redevelopment was possible. Luanda has since become one of the world's most expensive cities.
Following the Luanda Agreement in 2002, with the end of the Angolan Civil War and high economic growth rates fuelled by the wealth provided by the increasing oil and diamond production, major reconstruction started. Luanda has been of major concern because its population had multiplied and had far outgrown the capacity of the city, especially because much of its infrastructure including water, electricity, and roads had become obsolete and degraded.
Luanda has been undergoing major road reconstruction in the 21st century, and new highways are planned to improve connections to Cacuaco, Viana, Samba, and the new airport. Major social housing is also being constructed to house those who reside in slums, which dominate the landscape of Luanda. A large Chinese firm has been given a contract to construct the majority of replacement housing in Luanda. The Angolan minister of health recently stated poverty in Angola will be overcome by an increase in jobs and the housing of every citizen.

Geography

Human geography

Luanda is divided into two parts, the Baixa de Luanda and the Cidade Alta. The Baixa de Luanda is situated next to the port, and has narrow streets and old colonial buildings. However, new constructions have by now covered large areas beyond these traditional limits, and a number of previously independent nuclei — like Viana — were incorporated into the city.

Metropolitan Luanda

Until 2011, the former Luanda Province comprised five municipalities. In 2011 the Province was enlarged by the addition of two additional municipalities transferred from Bengo Province, namely Icolo e Bengo, and Quiçama. Excluding these additions, the five municipalities composed Greater Luanda. Two new municipalities have been created within Greater Luanda since 2017: Talatona and Kilamba-Kiaxi. Since 2024, the Luanda Province has 17 municipalities and Luanda municipality has been dissolved. Icolo e Bengo became a separate province from Luanda.

Name	Area in km²	Population Census 2014	Population Census 2024
Belas	614.3	309,229	381,861
Cacuaco	87.18	860,760	1,025,859
Camama	74.64	...	667,094
Cazenga	33.13	582,786	823,025
Hoji Ya Henda	25.34	309,615	642,050
Ingombota	14.57	103,260	144,911
Kilamba	419.2	...	493,593
Quilamba Quiaxi	51.52	841,411	1,120,781
Maianga	26.34	598,613	727,681
Mulenvos	70.97	...	882,014
Mussulo	43.03	7,798	15,283
Rangel	6.22	136,453	190,569
Samba	20.32	...	364,986
Sambizanga	4.71	...	177,808
Talatona	50.38	...	292,919
Viana	104.5	...	865,863
Totals	1,645	6,405,870	8,816,297

Districts

The city of Luanda is divided in six urban districts: Ingombota, Angola Quiluanje, Maianga, Rangel, Samba and Sambizanga.
In Samba and Sambizanga, more high-rise developments are to be built. The capital Luanda is growing constantly - and in addition, increasingly beyond the official city limits and even provincial boundaries.
Luanda is the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop. It is also the location of most of Angola's educational institutions, including the private Catholic University of Angola and the public University of Agostinho Neto. It is also the home of the colonial Governor's Palace and the Estádio da Cidadela, Angola's main stadium, with a total seating capacity of 60,000.