Luanda, Angola: The Paradox of PlentyVideo final calles Luanda

Описание: While every other country in Southern Africa has opened up to tourism in recent decades, Angola remains the exception—a vast Atlantic coast nation that has long been considered “out of bounds” to most visitors for myriad, shifting reasons, including the cost of living and the cost of war.
The connections of west-central Africa with the Atlantic world were first established in the 15th century, when a Portuguese expedition arrived in the kingdom of Kongo. By 1520, Portuguese traders reached the Mbundu state of Ndongo to the south, and in 1575 Paulo Dias de Novais established the coastal settlement of Luanda, marking the beginning of a lucrative trade in enslaved Africans that connected Luanda to the wider Atlantic world. Founded in 1576 by Paulo Dias de Novais and initially settled by the Portuguese, Luanda became the administrative center of the Portuguese colony of Angola in 1627 and was a major outlet for slave traffic to Brazil. The city is regarded as the capital of the Mbundu peoples, who have their roots in the surrounding area.
The trade in captives became the main economic activity of the Portuguese based in Angola, and Luanda became the single most important Atlantic slaving port. In Luanda and its hinterland, interactions between foreign and local peoples gave origin to a Luso-African society, which adopted elements of European and Mbundu cultures. Previous exposure to this Atlantic creole culture was crucial for the integration of enslaved Africans to societies in Latin America. Besides supplying captives to the transatlantic slave trade, Luanda was also a slave society. Elite men and women had numerous captives in their households and in agricultural properties located in rural suburbs and in the interior.
With the abolition of the slave trade in the Portuguese territories in Africa in 1836, Luanda experienced the development of the so called legitimate commerce in tropical commodities, shifting its Atlantic connections from Brazil to Europe and the United States. Meanwhile, the city was reconnected to São Tomé through a traffic of forced laborers to work on cocoa and coffee plantations.
Luanda, city, capital of Angola. Located on the Atlantic coast of northern Angola, it is the country’s largest city and one of its busiest seaports.
Luanda has a warm equable climate. The surrounding region fronts a tropical coastal plain that gives way to a tableland dissected and drained by the Cuanza River and other coastal streams. Cambambe Dam, 177 km to the southeast on the Cuanza, supplies power to Luanda. Skyscrapers and wide avenues give Luanda a modern appearance. The higher part of the city, consisting of the outlying districts, is generally poverty-ridden, and the lower is commercial and industrial. The city is the seat of a Roman Catholic archdiocese and is home to Agostinho Neto University and the Catholic University of Angola. The National Library of Angola and the National Historic Archive are also located there, as are several museums.