This area of numerous
hills and
swamps that later become known as Kampala was part of the core of the highly centralised
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 or different hill as they wished or desired.
19th century The first written description of this
Kibuga (capital) was by the explorer
Sir Richard 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: 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, During this visit, Stanley wrote a letter that was published in
The Daily Telegraph, inviting
missionaries to come to
Buganda. He also described the
Kibuga in his 1870s dispatches to
The New York Herald, thus: In 1877, the first
missionaries from the
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 also arrived, first settling at the present-day village of Kitebi near Lubaga; subsequently, they would 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
Great 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
Kabaka Mwanga II, with whom he signed a treaty of protection by the British government over Buganda, and the
Kibuga (capital) was located at
Mengo Hill.
Captain Lugard would, later on, be allocated the Kampala 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 the children of chiefs and pages of the royal palaces were students. In 1897, Mwanga launched a rebellion but was defeated and was subsequently captured and
exiled, in 1899, to
the Seychelles alongside Omukama
Kabalega, and his 3-year-old son was made
Kabaka by the combined forces of the European officers leading Nubian and Baganda
colonial soldiers. This state of affairs later culminated in the signing of the
Buganda Agreement (1900) that formalised 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, Sir Albert Ruskin Cook founded
Mulago Hospital, the current National Referral Hospital, at
Mulago hill in 1913. In 1899, the
Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa founded
Lubaga Hospital on
Lubaga Hill.
20th century In 1900, the regents of the infant
Kabaka Daudi Cwa II (who were
Apolo Kagwa, the
Katikiro (Prime Minister) of Buganda, Stanislaus Mugwanya, the
Mulamuzi (Chief Judge) of Buganda, and Zakaria Kisingiri, the
Muwanika (Chief Treasurer) of Buganda, with
Bishop Alfred Tucker), signed the
Buganda Agreement on behalf of Buganda with
Sir Harry Johnston, who signed on behalf of the
British government. This agreement with Sir Harry Johnston created new land tenures such as freehold,
Crown land, and
mailo, and divided up and allocated the land in such a way that would come to define the development of Kampala. The land in
Buganda's
Kibuga (capital), including
Mengo Hill and
Makerere Hill, was allocated to the young
Kabaka, the
Baganda colonial collaborators, etc., under mailo and freehold. The religious missions were also formally allocated land they were previously occupying. Thus, the
Catholic White Fathers got
Lubaga Hill, the Protestant
Church Missionary Society got
Namirembe Hill, the Muslims under Prince Nuhu Mbogo's leadership received
Kibuli Hill, the
British Catholic Mill Hill Missionaries received most of
Nsambya Hill. The
Uganda Protectorate government obtained land classified as Crown lands in the area such as
Old Kampala Hill,
Nakasero Hill, etc. To legalise the above changes, the following laws and ordinances were subsequently passed: The Crown lands Ordinance of 1903, The Land Law of 1908, The Registration of
Land Titles ordinance of 1922, and the Busulu and Envujo law of 1928. In 1906, the Crown lands consisting of Old Kampala,
Nakasero hills etc. and covering was consolidated and gazetted as Kampala Township. In 1912, Kampala Township received its first land-use plan and had a European and Asian population of 2,850. In 1922, Kampala's oldest university,
Makerere, was founded as the Uganda Technical College at the present Makerere Hill and initially offered
carpentry,
building construction,
mechanics,
arts,
education,
agriculture, and
medicine. In 1930, the first sewerage plan was prepared to target a population of 20,000 people in the
Nakasero and
Old Kampala areas of the Kampala township. This plan guided sewerage development from 1936 to 1940 in planned urban areas of the Kampala Township and excluded the
Kibuga area occupied by the
Baganda and other natives. In 1931, the
Uganda Railway line reached Kampala, connecting Kampala to
Mombasa Port, thirty-five years after the commencement of its construction. In 1938, The East African Power & Lighting Company was granted a licence for thermal electric power generation and distribution for the towns of Kampala and
Entebbe, and in the same year
Sir Philip Mitchel, the
Governor of Uganda, switched on Kampala and
Uganda's first electric
street lights. In 1945,
Ernst May, a German architect, was commissioned by the
Uganda Protectorate Government to design a new physical plan for Kampala. Ernst May's plan of 1947 was intended to extend Kampala eastwards covering
Kololo Hill and
Naguru Hill, and with the commercial centre on the southern slopes of
Nakasero Hill, an industrial zone in the southeast of Kampala, and, for the first time, a planned residential zone for the
Ugandan natives. The plan was never fully implemented, and in 1951 the third physical plan by
Henry Kendall was instead adopted, though it incorporated some elements of Ernst May's 1947 plan. Henry Kendall's 1951 plan expanded Kampala from the area of the 1930 plan to an area of incorporating areas like
Kololo Hill, and the Industrial Area. However, like the first two planning schemes, the 1951 plan failed to achieve many of its stated objectives. This increased the administrative area of Kampala from to the current . In 1972, the fourth physical plan for Kampala was made covering the newly incorporated areas of Kampala's boundary extensions of 1968, but the subsequent political and economic turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s meant the plan was never implemented. The
Battle of Kampala during the
Ugandan Bush War occurred in January 1986. It resulted in the capture of the city by the
National Resistance Movement, led by
Yoweri Museveni and the subsequent surrender of the
Ugandan government. Similarly, the fifth physical plan for Kampala, made in 1994, like the 1972 plan, was also never implemented.
21st century In 2010, the
Kampala Capital City Authority Act was enacted, giving the
Ugandan Government more control of the administration of Kampala. The act also created the Kampala Metropolitan Physical Planning Authority with the stated aims of improving the
infrastructure of the City of Kampala and the surrounding districts of
Wakiso,
Mukono,
Buikwe,
Mpigi and
Luwero. On 11 July, 2010, suicide bombers affiliated with
al-Shabaab, a Sunni
Islamist group based in
Somalia, carried out
two nearly simultaneous bombings in Kampala, killing 74 people. After eleven years of relative calm, on 16 November 2021, the
Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist group based in
eastern Congo with ties to the
Islamic State, carried out
two suicide bombings near the central police station and parliament, killing three people and injuring 36. == Geography ==