Cabinda

Sister cities

• Campinas

History

In 1490 Cabinda consisted of a small settlement of fishermen and hunters living along the seashore. From around 1530 onward it became the most important maritime outlet of the Kingdom of Cacongo, From the 17th century onward Cabinda gradually became a commercial settlement, with the presence of a Portuguese trading post established in 1620 for the trade of enslaved people, lubongo cloth, salt and timber. In 1783 the Portuguese reached an agreement with the authorities of Cacongo for the construction of the Fort of Santa Maria de Cabinda. The fort was destroyed the following year after a joint incursion by the Angoio, Cacongo and France. The attack was successful but ushered in a period of instability for the locality until the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when the Kingdom of Angoio began a process of political fragmentation and distanced itself from the city of Cabinda. The definitive end of the slave trade through the Cabinda port in the 1840s exposed the financial difficulties of the Kingdom of Cacongo, which became increasingly dependent on trade with the Fortaleza de Cabinda and on the busy local port that handled fish, textiles, salt and timber. On 1 February 1885, seven kilometers north of the city center—where a monument now stands—the Treaty of Simulambuco was signed, recognizing the Cabinda region as a Portuguese protectorate. In 1885 it began to be referred to as Porto Rico. In 1887 Cabinda became the seat of an administrative district. In 1975, on the eve of national independence, intense fighting occurred in the Antó-Iema border battle against the joint forces of the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) and the Zairean army. After repelling the border incursion, MPLA forces engaged in the Battle of Morro do Chizo in the southern area of Cabinda…

Geography

Cabinda is located on the Atlantic Ocean coast in the south of Cabinda Province, and sits on the right bank of the Bele River. The municipality is dominated by the ecoregion of the "Angolan scarp savanna and woodlands", with portions of "Atlantic equatorial forests" in the easternmost areas. Until September 2024 the municipality of Cabinda was divided into three communes: Cabinda (the municipal seat), Malembo and Tando Zinze. On 5 September 2024 part of the municipality of Cabinda was separated to form the municipalities of Angoio, Liambo and Tando Zinze. After the subdivision, the city was organized into the following neighbourhoods: Centro, Ponta do Farol, A Vitória é Certa, Lombo-Lombo, Luvassa, 1 de Maio, Mongo Balança, Povo Grande, Ambaca, Baixa da Cidade, Resistência, Lúcio Tchiweka, Morro do Chizo, Zangoio, Mangue Seco and Emcica. The municipality has 699,053 inhabitants and a territorial area of 1,823 km², making it the most populous municipality in the province and the eighth most populous in the country. Of the municipality's population, 46.8% are men and 53.2% are women. There are also Luso-Angolan subgroups, migrants from the Kinshasa area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, The main language spoken in the city is Portuguese, alongside Ibinda (also called Fiote).