Lubumbashi

Sister cities

• Liège
• Ndola
• Hakkâri

History

The Belgian government established the modern-day government in the city of Élisabethville (sometimes Elizabethville, both in French, or Elisabethstad in Dutch) in 1910, named in honour of Queen Elisabeth, consort to King Albert I of the Belgians. By that time, the government had taken over the colony from King Leopold II, and renamed it as the Belgian Congo. This site was chosen by Vice-Governor-General Emile Wangermée because of its proximity to the copper mine of Etoile du Congo and the copper ore smelting oven installed by Union Minière du Haut Katanga on the nearby Lubumbashi River. The Comité Spécial du Katanga (CSK), a semi-private concessionary company set up in 1900, had its headquarters in Élisabethville throughout the colonial era. It enjoyed major privileges, mainly in terms of land and mining concessions, in the Katanga province. The city prospered with the development of a regional copper mining industry. Huge investments in the 1920s, both in the mining industry and in transport infrastructure (railline Elisabethville-Port Francqui and Elisabethville-Dilolo), developed the Katanga province into one of the world's major copper ore producers. The population of the city grew apace from approx. 30,000 in 1930, to 50,000 in 1943 and 180,000 in 1957. It was the second city of the Belgian Congo, after Léopoldville. As was customary with European colonies, the city centre of Élisabethville was reserved for the minority white (European) population. This consisted mainly of Belgian nationals, but the city also attracted important British and Italian communities, as well as Jewish Greeks. Congolese were allowed in the white city only during the day, except for the house servants ("boys") who often lived in shanty dwellings ("boyeries") located in the backyards…

Geography

Lubumbashi lies at around above sea level. The high altitude serves to cool the climate, which would otherwise be very hot. The Kafue River rises along the Zambian border near the city and meanders through north-central Zambia to the Zambezi River, cutting a long, deep panhandle into the country. Lubumbashi has a dry-winter humid subtropical climate (Cwa, according to the Köppen climate classification), with warm rainy summers and pleasant, dry winters, with most rainfall occurring during summer and early autumn. Annual average rainfall is 1,238 mm (48.75 inches). {|style="width:100%;text-align:center;line-height:1.2em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto" class="wikitable mw-collapsible" |- !Colspan=14|Maximum UV index for Lubumbashi |- !Month !Jan !Feb !Mar !Apr !May !Jun !Jul !Aug !Sep !Oct !Nov !Dec !Year |- !Average Ultraviolet index |style="background:#6b49c8;color:#000000;"|11+ |style="background:#6b49c8;color:#000000;"|11+ |style="background:#6b49c8;color:#000000;"|11+ |style="background:#6b49c8;color:#000000;"|11+ |style="background:#d8001d;color:#FFFFFF;"|10 |style="background:#d8001d;color:#FFFFFF;"|9 |style="background:#d8001d;color:#FFFFFF;"|9 |style="background:#6b49c8;color:#000000;"|11 |style="background:#6b49c8;color:#000000;"|11+ |style="background:#6b49c8;color:#000000;"|11+ |style="background:#6b49c8;color:#000000;"|11+ |style="background:#6b49c8;color:#000000;"|11+ |style="background:#d8001d;color:#FFFFFF;border-left-width:medium"|10.8 |- !Colspan=14 style="background:#f8f9fa;font-weight:normal;font-size:95%;"|Source: weather2travel.com |}

Most-observed species

• Common Bulbul

  Pycnonotus barbatus (Desfontaines, 1789) · Aves
  24
• African Pied Wagtail

  Motacilla aguimp Temminck, 1820 · Aves
  23
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  20
• Northern Fiscal

  Lanius humeralis Stanley, 1814 · Aves
  18
• Pied Crow

  Corvus albus Statius Muller, 1776 · Aves
  17
• Speckled Mousebird

  Colius striatus J.F.Gmelin, 1789 · Aves
  17
• Bronze mannikin

  Lonchura cucullata (Swainson, 1837) · Aves
  16
• Northern Gray-headed Sparrow

  Passer griseus (Vieillot, 1817) · Aves
  16

Most recent

• M 4.2 — 2025-05-04
  63 km S of Likasi, Democratic Republic of the Congo