Article Outline
Only 12 percent of Uganda’s population lives in urban areas. Kampala, near Lake Victoria, is Uganda’s intellectual and business center and its only large city. Jinja, the most important industrial center, is located on the Nile at Lake Victoria. Other important towns include Mbale, Entebbe, Masaka, Mpigi, and Mbarara.
As a result of migration and intermarriage, most Ugandans have ancestors from a variety of Uganda’s 34 ethnic groups, although people customarily identify with just a single group. In centuries past ancestors of many of these groups came to Uganda from what is now Sudan and Ethiopia. Many of the languages presently used are not mutually intelligible. About two-thirds speak Bantu languages and live in the south, including the largest ethnic groups: the Ganda, Nyankole, Kiga, and Soga. About one-sixth of Uganda’s people are Western Nilotic-speakers living in the north, such as the Langi and Acholi. Another one-sixth speak Eastern Nilotic languages and live in the northeast, including the Iteso and Karamojong. Finally, in the extreme northwest are speakers of Sudanic languages, including the Lugbara and the Madi. English is the official language of Uganda, though Swahili is more widely spoken and used as a lingua franca (a language used in common by different peoples to facilitate commerce and trade). Luganda, the language of the Ganda, is the most frequently used indigenous tongue. There is some tension among ethnic groups, particularly between the Ganda and others.
European missionary activity in the 19th century led to widespread conversion to Christianity. About 41 percent of the people of Uganda are Roman Catholics, and 40 percent are Protestants, most belonging to the Church of Uganda (Anglican). Protestants have had greater political influence from the arrival of British authorities until the present than those accepting the Roman Catholic faith. Muslims (5 percent) have less social status or political influence in Uganda than either Protestants or Catholics. Most Ugandans, whether or not they are Christians or Muslims, value the indigenous African religious traditions of their ethnic group.
Uganda’s educational system, modeled on Britain’s, was originally developed by missionaries, but is now run by the state and, increasingly, by the private sector. All levels of education suffer from shortages of teachers and facilities. Education is not compulsory, and schools charge fees for enrollment. There is a sharp decline in enrollment at each higher level—while almost all primary school aged children are enrolled in school, only 20 percent of children attend secondary school. Just 3 percent of the students move on to higher education. However, in 1997 the government began paying the enrollment fees of four primary school students per family, which doubled the number of primary pupils. Boys are more likely to be sent to school and much more likely to be kept in school than girls, but the gap at all levels is narrowing. In 2000, 53 percent of students at primary school were male. The adult literacy rate in 2005 was 72 percent, with male literacy of 81 percent and the female rate 63 percent. Makerere University (founded in 1922) in Kampala is the most important center of higher learning. Smaller universities and private colleges include the Uganda Martyrs University (1993) and Ndejje University (1992), both in Kampala; Uganda Christian University (1923), in Mukono; and the Mbarara University of Science and Technology (1989), in Mbarara.
Traditionally, Uganda’s different ethnic groups followed highly varied systems of social stratification. In the 20th century the country’s social structure evolved into a class system dominated by a small, educated middle class consisting mainly of professionals, wage earners (principally working for the state), and a small number of commercial farmers. Most of the rest of the population consists of poor peasant farmers.
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