Kampala travel guide.

Kampala is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city is divided into five boroughs that oversee local planning: Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Rubaga Division. Surrounding Kampala is the rapidly growing Wakiso District, whose population more than doubled between 2002 and 2014 and now stands at over 2 million.

Kampala was named the 13th fastest growing city on the planet, 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.

Etymology

Before the arrival of the British colonists, the Kabaka of Buganda had chosen the zone that would become Kampala as a hunting reserve. The area, composed of rolling hills with grassy wetlands in the valleys, was home to several species of antelope, particularly impala. When the British arrived, they called it "Hills of the Impala". The language of the Baganda, Luganda, adopted many English words because of their interactions with the British. The Baganda translated "Hill of the Impala" as Akasozi ke'Empala – "Kasozi" meaning "hill", "ke" meaning "of", and "empala" the plural of "impala". In Luganda, the words "ka'mpala" mean "that is of the impala", in reference to a hill, and the single word "Kampala" was adopted as the name for the city that grew out of the Kabaka's hills.