Kingdom of Buganda

The Kingdom of Buganda was founded in the twelfth, thirteenth or fourteenth century, traditionally by Kato Kintu, and remains the largest traditional kingdom in East Africa today, centered on the town of Mengo within Uganda's Central Region and encompassing Uganda's modern capital, Kampala. Bounded by Lake Victoria to the south, the Nile, also called the Kiira, to the east, Lake Kyoga to the north, the Ankole region to the west and the Kafu River to the northwest, the kingdom covers roughly 61,400 square kilometers and is home to about 14 million Baganda people, who speak Luganda and together make up around 16 percent of Uganda's population; the kingdom's economy centers on coffee and cotton production. Britain established a protectorate over Buganda in 1894, and independent Uganda's government abolished all of the country's traditional kingdoms in 1967 before restoring Buganda in 1993 as a constitutional monarchy. Buganda's current ruler, Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II, the thirty-sixth Kabaka, has reigned since the restoration, and the kingdom today occupies a largely ceremonial role while retaining significant cultural and institutional standing within modern Uganda.