Kampala Hill

Kampala Hill, commonly referred to as Old Kampala, is a hill in the center of Kampala, Uganda's capital and largest city.

Location

Kampala Hill is bordered by Makerere to the north, Nakasero to the east, Mengo to the south and Namirembe to the west. When calculating distances between Kampala and other places, Kampala Hill is often taken as the starting point. The coordinates of the hill are:0°18'55.0"N, 32°34'07.0"E (Latitude: 0.315278; Longitude: 32.568611).

Overview

Kampala hill was the nucleus of the city of Kampala. When the city expanded to other neighboring hills, the place began to be referred to as Old Kampala, a name that is still in use today, 120 years later. As of June 2014, the hill is a mixed commercial and residential neighborhood with high-rise apartment complexes, shops, restaurants, bars, cafes, bed-and-breakfast establishments and several motels. The neighborhood is a beehive of activity, both during the week and on weekends.

History

Before the arrival of the British, Kampala Hill, along with the neighboring environs, was a favorite hunting ground of the King of Buganda. The area was particularly rich with game, especially Impala, a type of African antelope. The word Impala, most probably comes from the Zulu language. The British referred to the hill as the Hill of the Impala. The Luganda translation comes to Akasozi K'empala. Through repeated usage, the name of the place eventually became Kampala. The name then came to apply to the entire city.

Kampala

Kampala is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city is divided into five boroughs that oversee local planning: Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Lubaga Division. The city is coterminous with Kampala District. Surrounding Kampala is the rapidly growing Wakiso District, whose population more than doubled between 2002 and 2014 and now stands at over 2 million.

Etymology

Before the arrival of the British colonists, the Kabaka of Buganda had chosen the zone that would become Kampala as a hunting reserve. The area, composed of rolling hills with grassy wetlands in the valleys, was home to several species of antelope, particularly impala. When the British arrived, they called it "Hills of the Impala". The language of the Buganda, Luganda, adopted many English words because of their interactions with the British. The Buganda translated "Hill of the Impala" as Akasozi ke'Empala - "Kasozi" meaning "hill", "ke" meaning "of", and "empala" the plural of "impala". In Luganda, the words "ka'mpala" means "that is of the impala", in reference to a hill, and the single word "Kampala" was adopted as the name for the city that grew out of the Kabaka's hills.

Lawapa

Lawapa or Lavapa (Wylie: la ba pa; grub chen la ba pa; wa ba pa ) was a figure in Tibetan Buddhism who flourished in the 10th century. He was also known as Kambala and Kambalapada (Sanskrit: Kaṃbalapāda). Lawapa, was a mahasiddha, or accomplished yogi, who travelled to Tsari. Lawapa was a progenitor of the Dream Yoga sādhanā and it was from Lawapa that the mahasiddha Tilopa received the Dream Yoga practice lineage.

Bhattacharya, while discussing ancient Bengali literature, proffers that Lawapa composed the Kambalagītika (Wylie: la ba pa'i glu "Lawapa's Song") and a few songs of realization in the Charyapada.

Simmer-Brown (2001: p. 57) when conveying the ambiguity of ḍākinīs in their "worldly" and "wisdom" guises conveys a detailed narrative that provides the origin of Lawapa's name:

Nomenclature, orthography and etymology

Alternate English orthographies are Lwabapa, Lawapa and Lvapa. An alternate English nomenclature for Lawapa is Kambala.

Hevajra

The Hevajra Tantra, a yoginītantra of the anuttarayogatantra class, is held to have originated between the late eighth century C.E. (Snellgrove), and the "late ninth or early tenth century" (Davidson), in Eastern India, possibly Bengal. Tāranātha lists Saroruha and Kampala (also known as "Lva-va-pā, "Kambhalī", and "Śrī-prabhada") as its "bringers":

Kampala District

Kampala District is a district in Uganda that is coterminous with the country's capital city, Kampala. The main language spoken is Luganda. Many other languages, however, are spoken, including English, Swahili, Runyankole/Rukiga, Acholi, and Lusoga.

Location

Kampala District is within the Kingdom of Buganda, in the Central Region. The district is bordered by Wakiso District to the south, west, and north and by Kira Municipality to the east. The coordinates of the district are:00 19N, 32 35E.

Demographics

According to the provisional results of the 2014 national census, the district had a population of 1,516,210. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics estimated that the population had grown at a rate of 2.02% since the last national census in 2002.

Administrative units

Kampala District is divided into five administrative divisions:

Each administrative division is independently administered by locally elected officials who report to the City Council Administration headed by an elected Lord Mayor. The mayor of Kampala is Al Hajj Erias Lukwago.