Bordered by Kenya, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Tanzania, Uganda is a landlocked country in East Africa. The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania, situating the country in the African Great Lakes region. It also lies within the Nile basin, and has a varied but generally a modified equatorial climate. Uganda takes its name from the Buganda kingdom, which encompasses a large portion of the south of the country including the capital Kampala.
The people of Uganda were hunter-gatherers until 1,700 to 2,300 years ago, when Bantu-speaking populations migrated to the southern parts of the country. The Empire of Kitara covered most of the Great Lakes area. Bunyoro-Kitara is claimed as the antecedent of later kingdoms: Buganda, Toro, Ankole, and Busoga. Nilotic people entered the area from the north, probably beginning about A.D. 120. The invasion is believed to have led to the collapse of the Chwezi Empire. Arab traders moved inland in the 1830s, and they were followed in the 1860s by British explorers.
Beginning in 1894, the area was ruled as a protectorate by the British, until 1962, when Uganda gained independence. The period since then has been marked by intermittent conflicts, most recently a lengthy civil war against the Lord's Resistance Army. The official languages are Swahili and English. Luganda, a central language, is widely spoken across the country, and multiple other languages are also spoken. Christians made up about 86% of the population, Muslims representing 12%.
Uganda has substantial natural resources, including fertile soils, regular rainfall, and sizeable mineral deposits of copper and cobalt. The country has largely untapped reserves of both crude oil and natural gas. However, Uganda is one of the poorest nations in the world. While agriculture accounted for 56% of the economy in 1986, it has now been surpassed by the services sector. The country has very significant overpopulation problems, Uganda's population increasing from 9.5 million in 1969 to 34.9 million in 2014.
During the colonial era the British used a British Blue ensign defaced with the colonial badge, as prescribed in 1865 regulations. Buganda, the largest of the traditional kingdoms in the colony of Uganda, had its own flag. The current flag of Uganda was adopted on 9 October 1962, the date that Uganda became independent from the United Kingdom. It consists of six equal horizontal bands of black (top), yellow, red, black, yellow, and red (bottom); a white disc is superimposed at the centre and depicts the national symbol, a grey crowned crane, facing the hoist side.
About the stamps
The first stamp is part of a large series of reptiles, issued on August 28, 1995, about which I wrote here. The second is one of the 14 which forms the 10th Uganda definitive Stamp Series, Flowering Plants of Uganda, issued on June 22, 2005.
References
Uganda - Wikipedia
Sender: Grace
Sent from Kampala (Kampala / Uganda), on 10.12.2014
Photo and design: Byekwaso Blasio
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