Lobito

Province

Lobito is a town and a district ( concelho ) in the Angolan province of Benguela, located on the Atlantic coast.

The county was founded in 1843 and the city in 1905. Lobito located about 35 km north of the coastal city and provincial capital of Benguela. It has 207 957 inhabitants ( 2005).

The city of Lobito has the second largest port in the country. The Port of Lobito is located on the back of an elongated peninsula, the Restinga, in an enclosed, protected bay. The Restinga is home to the historic Governor 's Palace and other buildings of the former or still wealthy citizens. At the end of the peninsula there are fine sandy beach and bathing areas as well as some restaurants for recreational use.

History

The area around Lobito was colonized from neighboring Catumbela located on the eponymous river Catumbela. Catumbela was nonexistent as a place before Lobito and first ships arrived in the estuary to accommodate goods. Lobito, was built on a sandbar and is situated on a bay and by a 5 km long dune headland ( Restinga ) protected natural harbor. The first City Council was set up in 1843 by the colonial Portuguese administration at the direction of the royal house ( Maria II of Portugal ). Since 1903, the port of Lobito and works since 1928, the important railway line in the region, the Benguela railway that connected the then Portuguese Angola with the former Belgian Congo and Zambia. Under Portuguese administration, the port was a center for the export of agricultural goods, ores and copper. Tourism also gained a certain importance at this time. After the Carnation Revolution in Portugal and the independence of Angola, Benguela railway was seen as the main tributaries of the export products increasingly unreliable, because there was no regular transport more by the repeated outbreaks of civil war ( 1975-2002 ). The route and the port fell into disrepair. However, port and railway in the peace process after 2002 could be quickly rebuilt and today they are practically the lifeline of this Angolan city and region.

Economy

In addition to some off- shore activities for oil drilling off the coast there are fish and an ever-growing freight traffic for the supply of the hinterland.

In the port of Lobito to Benguela railway, which by rail to the Angolan port with the intermediate stations Huambo and Cuito with the copper Katanga Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, connects and beyond, with the orbits of Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe starts Mozambique and South Africa. The railway line was almost completely destroyed during the nearly 30 -year-old Angolan civil war and is now permanently restored since 2001. The section of 500 km to Cuito has already been put into operation.

The harbor with its 8 berth has sufficient depth and is being expanded greatly. Due to a trend towards containerisation old warehouses were demolished and repave the entire wharf area. Additional material handling vehicles were procured and there are an additional container terminal and a hinterland Depot arise. A number of modernization projects are performed here by Chinese construction companies. The port wants to ascend to the "container hub port " of the West African coast and take over here in transhipment of containers and also for other ports of large seagoing vessels. Here one thinks in particular to the constantly congested port of the capital Luanda.

Climate

Sons and daughters of the town

  • Daniel Chipenda (1931 - 1996), Angolan resistance fighters
  • António Escudeiro ( born 1933), Portuguese director and cinematographer
  • Jorge Campinos (1937-1993), Portuguese lawyer, university professor and socialist politician, several times Minister
  • António Setas ( born 1942 ), Angolan writer
  • Jorge Perestrelo (1948-2005), Portuguese sports journalist
  • Tomaz Morais (born 1970 ), Portuguese rugby player, coach of the Portuguese national rugby team
  • Pedro Couceiro (born 1970 ), Portuguese racing driver, as a child singer known
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