Kampala

Kampala is the capital city of Uganda. Like Rome, Kampala was traditionally said to have been built on seven hills, though as a result of recent expansion it now extends across many more.

Kampala is thought to date back to the site of the ancient hunting grounds of the kabakas (kings) of Buganda, the southern district from which the country of Uganda takes its name. Impala, the name of a species of antelope, is not a native word, but was probably taken from the Zulu language, and Kampala is thought to be a construction meaning ‘place of the impala’.

Kampala languished under economic mismanagement in the 1970s and was greatly damaged in the Uganda-Tanzania War. It has since been largely rebuilt.

The Bahai Temple in Kampala is one of only seven in the world.