Ovimbundu Kingdoms
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Ovimbundu Kingdoms
The Ovimbundu, also known as the Southern Mbundu, are a Bantu peoples, Bantu ethnic group who live on the Bié Plateau of central Angola and in the coastal strip west of these highlands. As the largest ethnic group in Angola, they make up 38 percent of the country's population. Overwhelmingly the Ovimbundu follow Christianity, mainly the ''Igreja Evangélica Congregacional de Angola (IECA)'', founded by American missionaries, and the Catholic Church. However, some still retain beliefs and practices from Traditional African religions, African traditional religions. History The origins of the Ovimbundu are Bantu expansion, Bantu populations who drifted in from the North, over the last millennium, and formed local/regional groups which slowly became political units and foci of social identity: M'Balundu, Sele, Wambo, Bieno and others. They developed a sophisticated agriculture, completed by the breeding of small animals (chicken, goats, swine) as well as of a modicum of cows b ...
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Angola
, national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = Portuguese , languages2_type = National languages , languages2 = , ethnic_groups = , ethnic_groups_ref = , ethnic_groups_year = 2000 , demonym = , government_type = Unitary dominant-party presidential republic , leader_title1 = President , leader_name1 = João Lourenço , leader_title2 = Vice President , leader_name2 = Esperança da CostaInvestidura do Pr ...
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Mbunda People
The Vambunda (singular ''Kambunda'', adjective and language ''Mbunda'', ''Mbúùnda'' or ''Chimbúùnda'') are a Bantu people who, during the Bantu migrations, came from the north to south-eastern Angola and finally Barotseland, now part of Zambia. Their core is at present found in the south-east of Angola from the Lunguevungu river in Moxico to the Cuando Cubango Province. The Vambunda comprise a number of subgroups, each of which speaks its own dialect: Mbunda Mathzi (''Katavola''), Yauma, Nkangala, Mbalango, Sango, Shamuka (''Chiyengele'') and Ndundu, all of them alive in southeast Angola.Bantu-Languages.com
citing Maniacky 1997


Origins

According to the oral tradition of the Vambunda, the first monarch of the

Bailundo (kingdom)
The Kingdom of Bailundo, also known as Bailundu, Mbailundu or Mbalundu, is an Angolan Ovimbundu kingdom based in the modern-day province of Huambo, in the central highlands of Angola. It was one of the largest and most powerful Ovimbundu kingdoms. Some news reports state the kingdom was founded in the 15th century, however oral histories and archival evidence suggest it emerged as a political entity around 1700. The kingdom was initially called Halavala. Characteristics The kingdom has passed through various stages in its history, both as an independent kingdom and as a vassal state of the Portuguese empire. Today, it is a non-sovereign monarchy within the Republic of Angola, and its rulers are considered community leaders and hold significant influence over local matters. The current territory of the kingdom contains the municipality of Bailundo, as well as some areas of neighbouring municipalities such as Mungo, Lounduimbale and Tchicalala. The monarchy's officially recognis ...
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Lubango
Lubango, formerly known as Sá da Bandeira, is a municipality in Angola, capital of the Huíla Province, with a population of 914,456 in 2022. The city center had a population of 600,751 in 2014 making it the second-most populous city in Angola after the capital city Luanda. History Portuguese rule In 1882 approximately one thousand Portuguese settlers came from the island of Madeira to the area of current-day Lubango. These Portuguese farmers helped develop the region and founded the settlement. The city, originally established in 1885 to serve colonists from the Madeira Islands, lies at an elevation of 1,760 metres in a valley of the Huíla Plateau and was surrounded by a scenic park spreading up the mountain slopes. By 1910 there were over 1,700 ethnic Portuguese living in the settlement, which was referred to as "Lubango". By 1923 the Moçâmedes Railway had connected the settlement to the town of Moçâmedes in the coast. The Portuguese government made it a city and renam ...
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Luanda
Luanda () is the capital and largest city in 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 capital city in the world and the most populous Lusophone city outside Brazil, with over 8.3 million inhabitants in 2020 (a third of Angola's population). Among the oldest colonial cities of Africa, it was founded in January 1576 as ''São Paulo da Assunção de Loanda'' by Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais. The city served as the centre of the slave trade to Brazil before its prohibition. At the start of the Angolan Civil War in 1975, most of the white Portuguese left as refugees, principally for Portugal. Luanda's population increased greatly from refugees fleeing the war, but its infrastructure was inadequate ...
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Lobito
Lobito is a Municipalities of Angola, municipality in Angola. It is located in Benguela Province, on the Atlantic Coast north of the Catumbela Estuary. The Lobito municipality had a population of 393,079 in 2014. History The city was founded in 1843 and owes its existence to the bay of the same name having been chosen as the sea terminus of the Benguela railway to the far interior, passing through Luau, Moxico, Luau to Katanga Province, Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The city is located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. The population of the municipality is 393,079 (2014) in an area of 3,648 km². The municipality consists of the Communes of Angola, communes Canjala, Egipto Praia and Lobito. Portuguese rule Lobito, was built on a sandspit and reclaimed land, with one of Africa's finest natural harbours, protected by a 5 km long sandspit. The old municipality (''concelho'') was created in 1843 by the Portuguese West Africa, Portuguese administratio ...
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Huambo
Huambo, formerly Nova Lisboa (English: ''New Lisbon''), is the third-most populous city in Angola, after the capital city Luanda and Lubango, with a population of 595,304 in the city and a population of 713,134 in the municipality of Huambo (Census 2014). The city is the capital of the province of Huambo and is located about 220 km E from Benguela and 600 km SE from Luanda. Huambo is a main hub on the ''Caminho de Ferro de Benguela (CFB)'' (the Benguela Railway), which runs from the port of Lobito to the Democratic Republic of the Congo's southernmost province, Katanga. Huambo is served by the Albano Machado Airport (formerly Nova Lisboa Airport). History Early history Huambo receives its name from Wambu, one of the 14 old Ovimbundu kingdoms of the central Angolan plateau. The Ovimbundu, an ethnic group that originally arrived from Eastern Africa, had founded their central kingdom of Bailundu as early as the 15th century. Wambu was one of the smaller kingdoms and ...
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Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi (; 3 August 1934 – 22 February 2002) was an Angolan revolutionary politician and rebel military leader who founded and led the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). UNITA waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule from 1966 to 1974, then confronted the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the Angolan Civil War. Savimbi was killed in a clash with government troops in 2002. Early life Savimbi was born in Munhango, Bié Province, a small town on the Benguela Railway, and raised in Chilesso, in the same province. Savimbi's father, Lote, was a stationmaster on Angola's Benguela railway line and a preacher of the Protestant ''Igreja Evangélica Congregacional de Angola (Evangelical Congregational Church of Angola)'', founded and maintained by American missionaries. Both his parents were members of the Bieno group of the Ovimbundu, the people who later served as Savimbi's major political base.. In hi ...
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Angolan Civil War
The Angolan Civil War ( pt, Guerra Civil Angolana) was a civil war in Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with interludes, until 2002. The war immediately began after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. The war was a power struggle between two former anti-colonial guerrilla movements, the communist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the turned anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). The war was used as a surrogate battleground for the Cold War by rival states such as the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa, and the United States. The MPLA and UNITA had different roots in Angolan society and mutually incompatible leaderships, despite their shared aim of ending colonial rule. A third movement, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), having fought the MPLA with UNITA during the war for independence, played almost no role in the Civil War. Additionally, the Front for the Liberati ...
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MPLA
The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola ( pt, Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, abbr. MPLA), for some years called the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola – Labour Party (), is an Angolan left-wing, social democratic political party. The MPLA fought against the Portuguese army in the Angolan War of Independence from 1961 to 1974, and defeated the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) in the Angolan Civil War. The party has ruled Angola since the country's independence from Portugal in 1975, being the ''de facto'' government throughout the civil war and continuing to rule afterwards. Formation On 10 December 1956, in Estado Novo-ruled Portuguese Angola, the underground Angolan Communist Party (PCA) merged with the Party of the United Struggle for Africans in Angola (PLUA) to form the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola, with Viriato da Cruz, the president of ...
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UNITA
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ( pt, União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, abbr. UNITA) is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the Angolan War of Independence, Angolan War for Independence (1961–1975) and then against the MPLA in the ensuing Angolan Civil War, civil war (1975–2002). The war was one of the most prominent Cold War proxy wars, with UNITA receiving military aid initially from China, People's Republic of China from 1966 until October 1975 and later from the United States and History of South Africa#aparthied, apartheid South Africa while the MPLA received support from the Soviet Union and its allies, especially Cuba. Until 1996, UNITA was Blood diamond#Angola, funded through Angolan diamond mines in both Lunda Norte Province, Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul Province, Lunda Sul along the Kwango River, Cuango River valley ...
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