Uganda is a landlocked country in East Africa, lying across the equator on a high plateau about 900 m above the sea, so it is warm but rarely very hot. Much of the south is taken up by Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, which Uganda shares with Kenya and Tanzania. At Jinja the Nile flows out of the lake and begins its long journey north, through Uganda and on towards Egypt. In the west rise the snowy Rwenzori Mountains, and in the east the old volcano Mount Elgon.
The country takes its name from Buganda, the largest of several old kingdoms around the lakes, whose kings, the Kabakas, ruled from the hills where Kampala now stands. Britain made Uganda a protectorate in 1894, and it became independent on 9 October 1962. The years that followed were hard, above all the military rule of Idi Amin in the 1970s and the wars that ended it, but the south has been peaceful for decades and Uganda is now a republic of about 46 million people.
Memories fade faster than photos. Ask these over a meal or a phone call, and write the answers down.
People have lived around the great lakes of Uganda for many thousands of years. About 3,000 years ago Bantu-speaking farmers arrived in the south and Nilotic-speaking herders in the north, and in time strong kingdoms grew up: Bunyoro-Kitara, Buganda, Ankole, Toro and Busoga. Arab traders came from the coast in the 1830s and British explorers in the 1860s, looking for the source of the Nile. Britain ruled Uganda from 1894 to 1962. After independence came years of coups and war, and since the late 1980s a long period of peace in most of the country.
In July 1862 the British explorer John Hanning Speke reached the northern shore of Lake Victoria and saw the Nile pouring out of the lake over a set of waterfalls near today's Jinja. He named them Ripon Falls and declared that he had found the source of the Nile, a claim that caused fierce arguments in Britain for years.
Kabaka Mwanga II ordered the execution of young men at his court who had become Christians and refused to give up their faith. On 3 June 1886 many of them were burned to death at Namugongo, near Kampala. The 22 Catholic martyrs were made saints in 1964, and every 3 June huge crowds of pilgrims gather at Namugongo.
In March 1900 British officials and the regents of the young Kabaka signed the Buganda Agreement. It recognised the Kabaka and his council, the Lukiiko, under British rule, and divided much of Buganda's land between the royal family, the chiefs and the Crown.
A hydroelectric dam was built at the outlet of Lake Victoria near Jinja and finished in 1954. It brought electricity to much of Uganda, and its rising water covered the Ripon Falls that Speke had seen.
In August 1972 Amin ordered Uganda's Asian minority, most of them of Indian origin, to leave the country within 90 days. Tens of thousands of people lost their homes and businesses; many settled in Britain. Some families returned years later and got their property back.
After a guerrilla war that began in 1981, the National Resistance Army took Kampala in January 1986. Peace slowly returned to the south, although a rebel war in the north lasted for about two more decades.
On 8 October 1995 Uganda's fourth constitution was promulgated after years of public consultation by a constitutional commission and debate by an elected assembly. It is still in force, with later amendments.
In 2010 a fire destroyed the great thatched tomb house of the Buganda kings at Kasubi. After years of careful rebuilding with traditional materials and skills, UNESCO removed the site from its List of World Heritage in Danger in 2023.
Cook one of the recipes, print the large-print pack about Uganda, and finish with the big-screen quiz or the words crossword. Grandchildren can colour the flag.
