Cabinda, also known as Chioua, is a city and a municipality located in the Cabinda Province, an exclave of Angola. Angolan sovereignty over Cabinda is disputed by the secessionist Republic of Cabinda. The city of Cabinda had a population of 550,000 and the municipality a population of 624,646, at the 2014 Census. The residents of the city are known as Cabindas or Fiotes. Cabinda, due to its proximity to rich oil reserves, serves as one of Angola's main oil ports.

History

The city was founded by the Portuguese in 1883 after the signing of the Treaty of Simulambuco, in the same period as the Berlin Conference. Cabinda was an embarkation point for slaves to Brazil. There are considerable offshore oil reserves nearby.

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. According to the Köppen climate classification, Cabinda is a tropical savanna climate. It is 56 km north of Moanda (Congo-Kinshasa), 70 km north of Congo River estuary and 137 km south of Pointe-Noire (Congo-Brazzaville).

Districts

The city of Cabinda is divided into three districts, or comuna:

Education and science

Cabinda is home to two public higher education institutions, namely the 11 de Novembro University and the Higher Institute of Education Sciences of Cabinda. In addition, it has campuses of the Lusíada University and the Private University of Angola.

Culture

The city's population has a distinctive culture from its way of dressing and eating to traditional rituals, especially Chicumbe and celebrated ceremonies of Bakamas do Tchizo, a traditional ritual that enables the interaction between the living and the occult spirits of the gods and the ancestors, thus ensuring the reconciliation between the dead and the living.

Language

Since Portugal colonized Cabinda later than the rest of Angola, Portuguese, the official language of Angola, is not yet widely spoken, although Portuguese speakers are rapidly growing in number. Portuguese is used mostly in official or administrative settings. It is Ibinda, a Bantu language, that is the primary language of both the city and province of Cabinda.

Transport

In 2012, a proposed railway connection to the main Angolan system has to cross territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Notable people