Prior to the arrival of the Portuguese, the island of what today is part of the capital city Luanda was known among the native African Population as Loanda, meaning "flat land." The island had no mountains and was comprised only of sand that shifted with the tides and the flow of the nearby Kwanza river.

Native villages, called Libatas, scattered the area and were ruled by a governor (a subject of the King of Congo) who administered justice and oversaw the collection of zimbros, the cowrie shells that were the principal currency of the kingdom of the Congo.

On February 20, 1575, carrying credentials from King D. Sebastiao, Paulo Dias de Novais landed at the island of Luanda in command of a fleet of seven ships carrying a hundred families of colonists and 400 soldiers.

The following year, Novais moved to the mainland opposite the island and established the settlement that was to become Sao Paulo.

What attracted Novais to the area was the prospect of controlling the legendary silver mines of Cambambe. Loanda and the Sao Paulo settlement offered a sheltered port in an excellent spot very close to the river Kwanza, the route to the mines. Over time, the area became the departure point of the Kwata! Kwata! Wars to capture slaves and the assembly and loading point for slave ships bound for Brazil. The brisk trade in slaves brought more colonists and the settlement grew.The Cathedral of Luanda was constructed in 1583, followed ten years later by the Jesuit Church and in 1604 by the Monastery of Sao Jose. In 1605, the Governor, Manuel Cerveira Pereira, conferred the status of city on the settlement of Sao Paulo, making Luanda the first city to be founded by Europeans on the West Coast of sub-Saharan Africa.

Between 1641 and 1648, the city was occupied by the Dutch, from whom it was retaken by troops commanded by Salvador Correia de Sá on 15 August 1648, the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin. In honour of the feast day, Correia de Sá changed the city's name from Sao Paulo de Loanda to Sao Paulo da Assunção. On 6 August 1650, the Senate of the Council Chamber granted a large area of territory to Salvador Correia de Sá in recognition of his military achievements.

Work began on laying out the lower part of the city, where the present Cathedral was built in the following year.

By the end of the seventeenth century, Luanda was a small town made up of an upper part, the Cidade Alta where colonial power, the Church, and the bourgeoisie were based, and a lower zone which began in the present-day district of Coqueiros, where a Population of ruffians and traders made their living largely from the slave trade.

There was an enormous intermingling of the Europeans and the Africans which created the most racially mixed society in the whole of Africa, a blend of races, customs and cultures that gave the city's Population a unique character that has survived and strengthened over the years.

Power and wealth were measured chiefly by the numbers of slaves one owned; a petit bourgeois owned on average fifty slaves, while the aristocracy would frequently have several thousand.

During the governorship of Sousa Coutinho, Luanda's first streets where built, with the two halves of the city finally linked by paved roads in 1779. During the same period several large construction projects were completed, notably the Terreiro Público (Public Square), the Customs House, the Wharf, the first Hall of Geometry, and others.

Luanda's water supply has been the city's greatest problem since the beginning of its history. The first large scale project to solve the water problem was conceived in 1645 by the Dutch, who planned to construct a canal from the river Kwanza to the city. Prior to this Luanda was supplied mainly by wells such as the "Maiang Wells" and by water barrels transported by sea from the Bengo river.

Problems with the water supply seriously affected the city's prospects for development. In February 1886 Pinheiro Chagas, Minister of the Crown, stated that "Luanda is still dying of thirst between two rivers, whose waters could have long ago been pouring along the streets of the state capitol." Finally on March 2, 1889, 313 years after the city's founding, Governor-general Brito Capelo opened the sluice-gates and allowed the water of the Bengo river to flow along an aqueduct to Luanda.

The Population of Luanda was chiefly concentrated between the sea and the Cidade Alta. Its roads were of sand, without pavements, and transport was mainly by palanquins and carts. The palanquins were carried by slaves, who frequently stopped in the middle of the road to rest. This situation continued right up to the end of the nineteenth century, when the city's streets were finally paved.

The city continued to flourish and became known as "the Paris of Africa" as it was affectionately called in the 1872 Report of the National Ultramarine Bank.

The city's coastal setting, its bay and spectacular views inspired great plans for the capital's development. It had an irregular topography, predominantly of red sand (the musseques) that crumbled into unstable gullies.

Large-scale infrastructure projects were required to support the considerable development being planned for the city. Nevertheless, streets and neighbourhoods sprang up without the slightest overall plan or geometric design.

The resulting difficulties were such that it was impossible to find a contractor capable of building a suitable working transport system in Luanda.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, as the slave trade diminished, there was a significant increase in other trade. In the 1851 customs records for exports a great variety of products are listed, including cotton, peanuts oil, palm oil, coffee, lime, wax, leather, copal, cassava flour, and other items.

After the abolition of slavery, the clusters of native huts on the musseques (red sands) underwent considerable development. They grew without any urban planning and without a trace of infrastructure.

In them, Africans from the interior came together with those forced out of the center of the city, which was increasingly being taken over by the ruling classes.

Within a few years, the musseques constituted a city of blacks inside the city of the whites.

Popular culture, traditions and values were maintained and thrived there, rapidly leading to the awakening of a nationalist spirit and the creation of various associations that later became part of the emancipation movement. The foundations of independence were laid in the musseques.

By the turn of the century, Luanda was experiencing a new dynamism. New transport links with the interior appeared, by road and rail, which led to increases in trade and exports and the establishment of new factories. Luanda had become an important commercial hub and the main urban center of a thriving colony.

The end of the slave trade and the introduction of a well-designed education system, without significant discrimination, brought its inhabitants closer together. A new mentality began to emerge.

In the twentieth century, with developments in education and the later establishment of the Salvador Correia High School, the first of its kind in Angola, there was a period of considerable cultural mixing between Europeans, their African born descendants, and native black Africans. All of them, without discrimination, now had access to the best jobs, those in public administration. The rise of important local families, who still today occupy the highest places in society, occurred at that time.

From 1950 onwards, the city grew with astonishing rapidity. The Population of the Luanda municipality soon reached 200,000, of whom 70 percent were black. Many new districts appeared including Vila Clotilde, Vila Alice, Praia do Bispo, Miramar, and Quinaxixi, among many others. Civil construction increased apace. During the 1940s the number of buildings registered increased from 2700 to 7500. The Fundo dos Bairros Operários (Working class Neighbourhoods Fund) was established and new neighbourhoods appeared in the suburbs.

The rise in coffee prices was the main reason for this spectacular development. The highest priority was now given to settling more Portuguese nationals in the colony. In 1970 there were two whites in Luanda to every five blacks.

After the beginning of the armed liberation struggle in 1961, the colonial Government found itself compelled to encourage rapid and effective economic growth, by offering substantial incentives to industry. Between 1950 and 1970 more than 1100 new industrial units were set up, 80 percent of them in the 1960s.

Most of the hotels now to be found in the capital were built during this period. The biggest - such as the Trópico, the Presidente, the Panorama and the Costa do Sol were built during the 1970s.

Luanda Today

Luanda experienced several critical situations in the last two decades, including an urban war, the emigration of technicians, the migration into the city by the rural Population and the consequent collapse of infrastructure.

Today, Luanda is recovering from years of strife and the first buildings built during the post-independence period are finally completed and in use. Besides the above-mentioned monuments, one of Angola's most famous landmarks is the National Bank of Angola building, a most amazing example of colonial architecture. The large pink structure overlooks the Luanda bay and the island.

There are several African markets in Luanda of which Roque Santeiro is the largest. The open air market, one of Africa's largest, sells everything one can imagine, from African art to appliances.

Just south of the city, the red tone of the land, the blue of the sky and sea and patches of green vegetation give colour to the semiarid areas where one can find "imbondeiro and candelabro" cactus.

Travelling south through Corimba and past "Futungo de Belas" (the presidential compound) lies Mussulo, a reef formed by sediments of the Kwanza River. Mussulo is about 40 kilometers long and forms a bay with 3 isles of which the largest is called the Island of the Priests. On this side the land is covered with "mangais" and coconut palms and the white sand beaches are wide.

On the other side, the bay is the touristic Mussulo where were built many weekend houses and a small tourist complex complete with bar, restaurant, bungalows and a water sports center. The bay is famous for its wide variety of fish. The calm water is also good for water sports.

Continuing further south one can visit the Slavery museum that sits atop the spot where slaves were kept while awaiting transport to Brazil.

Further still is the Kwanza delta where the river meets the sea. It is a beautiful spot for picnics and fishing. It has some restaurants and bungalows.

Beyond the river is Quissama, the location of one of Angola's National parks. The park is famous for its animals, including elephants, buffalo, lions and exotic birds.

To the east of Luanda is the industrial center of Viana that today is surrounded by farms that produce much of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the capital. To the north of the city is the fishing village of Cacuaco with its salt beds.