Kyankwanzi District
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Kyankwanzi District is the northernmost
district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...
in the Buganda Region of
Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...
and
Buganda Kingdom Buganda is a Bantu kingdom within Uganda. The kingdom of the Baganda people, Buganda is the largest of the traditional kingdoms in present-day East Africa, consisting of Buganda's Central Region, including the Ugandan capital Kampala. The 14 m ...
, bordering
Bunyoro Bunyoro or Bunyoro-Kitara is a Bantu kingdom in Western Uganda. It was one of the most powerful kingdoms in Central and East Africa from the 13th century to the 19th century. It is ruled by the King (''Omukama'') of Bunyoro-Kitara. The current ...
. The district headquarters are in Butemba Town.


Geography

The Kyankwanzi District borders Nakaseke District to the east across the
Mayanja River River Mayanja is a river in Uganda, East Africa. Location The Mayanja River is located in Central Uganda. It starts from the hills, northeast of the town of Wakiso, in Wakiso District, Central Uganda and flows in a northwestern direction to ...
,
Kiboga District Kiboga District is a district in the Buganda Region of Uganda. The town of Kiboga is the site of the district headquarters. Location Kiboga District is bordered by Nakaseke District to the northeast and east, Mityana District to the south, Mu ...
to the south-east,
Mubende District Mubende is a district in the Central Region of Uganda. The town of Mubende is the site of the district headquarters. The district was reduced in size in July 2005 with the creation of the Mityana District and reduced again in 2019 with the creat ...
and
Kibaale District Kibaale District, is a district in the Western Region of Uganda. The district headquarters are in the town of Kibaale. Location Kibaale District is bordered by Hoima District to the north, Kyankwanzi District to the north-east, Mubende District ...
to the south-west across the Lugogo River, and
Hoima Hoima is a city in the Western Region of Uganda. It is the main municipal, administrative, and commercial center of Hoima District. It is also the location of the palace of the Omukama of Bunyoro. Location Hoima is approximately , by road, nort ...
and
Masindi Masindi is a town in the Western Region of Uganda. It is on the road between Kampala and the Murchison Falls National Park. It is the site of the headquarters of the Masindi District. Location Masindi is approximately northwest of Kampala, Ug ...
districts to the north across the
River Kafu River Kafu is a river in Uganda, in East Africa. On some older maps, the river is labelled as River Kabi. Location The Kafu River is located in the western part of Uganda. It starts from a swamp approximately , northeast of the village of Kitoma ...
. The district headquarters in Butemba Town on the Bukwiri-Kyankwanzi Road are approximately by road from
Kampala Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...
, the nation's capital. The district has lush green forests and prairies with only minor elevation differences as it is the plateau behind the western fork of the
East African Rift The East African Rift (EAR) or East African Rift System (EARS) is an active continental rift zone in East Africa. The EAR began developing around the onset of the Miocene, 22–25 million years ago. In the past it was considered to be part of a ...
running across the Hoima District. The altitude is roughly 1,000–1,200 meters above sea level.


History

Kyankwanzi District was carved out of
Kiboga District Kiboga District is a district in the Buganda Region of Uganda. The town of Kiboga is the site of the district headquarters. Location Kiboga District is bordered by Nakaseke District to the northeast and east, Mityana District to the south, Mu ...
by Act of Parliament in July 2010, with eight sub-counties in Kiboga North County. Prior to the creation, district services operated from Kiboga Town, approximately from Butemba. Further in the past, Kyankwanzi District was carved out of
Kiboga Kiboga is a town in the Buganda Region of Uganda. It is the main municipal, administrative, and commercial center of Kiboga District, and the district headquarters are located there. Location Kiboga is located approximately northwest of Kamp ...
District. The reasons given for forming the district included the long distances that residents had to travel to access district services at Kiboga. The district name derives from Kyankwanzi Town, 20 km farther away from Kampala-Hoima Road, as the region is historically associated with the
National Resistance Movement The National Resistance Movement ( sw, Harakati za Upinzani za Kitaifa; abbr. NRM) has been the ruling party in Uganda since 1986. History The National Resistance Movement (NRM) was founded as a liberation movement that waged a guerrilla ...
(NRM), which started the
Ugandan Bush War The Ugandan Bush War, also known as the Luwero War, the Ugandan Civil War or the Resistance War, was a civil war fought in Uganda by the official Ugandan government and its armed wing, the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), against a number o ...
of 1981-86 from cattle-herding Kyankwanzi under the direction of
President Museveni Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa (born 15 September 1944) is a Ugandan politician and retired senior military officer who has been the 9th and current President of Uganda since 26 January 1986. Museveni spearheaded rebellions with aid of then ...
. Up to this day, Kyankwanzi serves as the strong foothold of the NRM and hosts the National Leadership Institute that provides training to serving military troops and public servants of Uganda. Meanwhile, Butemba was chosen as the district seat for accessibility and land availability reasons.


Administrative units

The district has only one county, Kiboga West County. Culturally, Kyankwanzi is the northwestern frontier of the Buganda Kingdom, overseen from the Ssingo county seat of
Mityana Mityana, is a town in the Central Region of Uganda. It is the main municipal, administrative, and commercial center of Mityana District, and the district headquarters are located there. Location Mityana is approximately , by road, west of Kampa ...
. Once belonging to
Bunyoro Bunyoro or Bunyoro-Kitara is a Bantu kingdom in Western Uganda. It was one of the most powerful kingdoms in Central and East Africa from the 13th century to the 19th century. It is ruled by the King (''Omukama'') of Bunyoro-Kitara. The current ...
, as Rugonjwa Sub-county, Nsambya Sub-county in the northwest was won by the Buganda Kingdom in the battles in the 1890s under Kabaka
Mwanga II Danieri Basammula-Ekkere Mwanga II Mukasa (1868 – 8 May 1903)D. A. Low''Fabrication of Empire: The British and the Uganda Kingdoms, 1890-1902'' Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 210, note 196. was Kabaka of Buganda from 1884 until 1888 and fro ...
's rule.


Demographics

In 1991, the national population census estimated the district population at 43,500. The next national census in 2002 estimated the population at 120,600. In 2012, the population was estimated at 182,900. In 2009, Kyankwanzi Sub-county, then under the Kiboga District, was recorded as the poorest administrative area in the Central Region, with 38 percent of the population living on less than US$1.00 a day. Kiboga and Kyankwanzi are popular destinations for rural-to-rural migration in Uganda. The government announced in the 1990s availability of land resources to attract farmers from around the country. It is now inhabited by the Soga and Masaba peoples in the east, and the Kiga and Fumbira peoples from
Kigezi Kigezi District once covered what are now Kabale District, Kanungu District, Kisoro District and Rukungiri District, in southwest Uganda. Its terraced fields are what gives this part of Uganda its distinctive character. Kigezi was popularly known ...
in the southwest, as well as indigenous
Baganda The Ganda people, or Baganda (endonym: ''Baganda''; singular ''Muganda''), are a Bantu ethnic group native to Buganda, a subnational kingdom within Uganda. Traditionally composed of 52 clans (although since a 1993 survey, only 46 are official ...
,
Banyoro Bunyoro or Bunyoro-Kitara is a Bantu kingdom in Western Uganda. It was one of the most powerful kingdoms in Central and East Africa from the 13th century to the 19th century. It is ruled by the King ('' Omukama'') of Bunyoro-Kitara. The cur ...
, and the cattle-keeping
Ankole people Ankole (Runyankore: ''Nkore''), was a traditional Bantu kingdom in Uganda and lasted from the 15th century until 1967. The kingdom was located in south-western Uganda, east of Lake Edward. History Ankole Kingdom is located in the South-Western ...
/
Rwandans The Banyarwanda ( rw, Abanyarwanda (plural), Umunyarwanda (singular), lit=those who come from Rwanda) are the cultural, tribal and linguistic group of people who inhabit mainly Rwanda. Some Banyarwanda live in the Democratic Republic of the ...
with some Congolese refugees. Almost all residents are at least bilingual.


Economic activities

Crop husbandry, livestock keeping,
logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...
/ charcoal-making are the three major economic activities in the district. Because the Kyankwanzi District is located along the cattle corridor that crosses the country from south-west to north-east, many residents are of
Banyankole Ankole ( Runyankore: ''Nkore''), was a traditional Bantu kingdom in Uganda and lasted from the 15th century until 1967. The kingdom was located in south-western Uganda, east of Lake Edward. History Ankole Kingdom is located in the South-Weste ...
/
Banyarwanda The Banyarwanda ( rw, Abanyarwanda (plural), Umunyarwanda (singular), lit=those who come from Rwanda) are the cultural, tribal and linguistic group of people who inhabit mainly Rwanda. Some Banyarwanda live in the Democratic Republic of the C ...
origin who pasture
Ankole cattle The Ankole is a breed or group of breeds of African cattle, belonging to the broad Sanga cattle grouping of African breeds. It was probably introduced to Uganda between five and seven hundred years ago by nomadic pastoralists from more north ...
in the vast woodland. Cattle-keeping is mostly concentrated on Kapeke, Kyankwanzi, Nsambya Sub-county areas. In these areas, weekly or bi-monthly cattle markets are set up in major trading centers. Crop husbandry is most prominent in the Nsambya Sub-country area with maize, beans, and rice produced, as well as tobacco leaves. Nsambya crop produce is marketed in the regional town of
Hoima Hoima is a city in the Western Region of Uganda. It is the main municipal, administrative, and commercial center of Hoima District. It is also the location of the palace of the Omukama of Bunyoro. Location Hoima is approximately , by road, nort ...
and the capital
Kampala Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...
, where traders from urban areas and as far as in South Sudan and Kenya make purchases. Food crops, both for cash and subsistence purposes, include the following: Utilizing the rich soil, the Kyankwanzi area is also known as a producer of forest products, namely,
timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...
and
charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...
, both of which are tax revenue sources. The German company Global Woods AG has obtained a 50-year tree farming license from the National Forestry Authority for an area of 12,186 hectares on Ugandan state land in the Kikonda Forest Reserve. Global Woods plans to plant monocultures mainly of
pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...
(Pinus caribaea, Pinus oocarpa) and
eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as euca ...
(Eucalyptus grandis) trees on 8,000 hectares for later logging and to reserve the rest "for conservation". Local farmers were driven from the land, ending the traditional practice of grazing cattle in the woods and making charcoal for cooking and the market. Global Woods sells
carbon credits A carbon credit is a generic term for any tradable certificate or permit representing the right to emit a set amount of carbon dioxide or the equivalent amount of a different greenhouse gas (tCO2e). Carbon credits and carbon markets are a compo ...
, which allow the purchaser to emit more
greenhouse gas A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs and Emission (electromagnetic radiation), emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse ...
es than the limit agreed in the
Kyoto Protocol The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part ...
and later international climate conferences. Carbon certificates are also the subject of a speculative financial market. Public transport to Kyankwanzi District is chiefly made up of long-distance bus services which connect Kampala with the Bunyoro capital of Hoima. Taxis, both in wagons and sedans, connect major trading centres such as Bukwiri, Ntwetwe, Kyenda, Ntunda, and Kikonda with Kiboga. Kyankwanzi is served by taxis from Bukwiri and Bukomero, beside the training participants at the National Leadership Institute who have direct shuttle services from Kampala.


References


External links

* {{Authority control Districts of Uganda Central Region, Uganda