Cabinda (city)

About Cabinda (city)

Cabinda, also known as Chioua, is a city and a municipality in the Cabinda Province, an exclave of Angola. It is the administrative capital of Cabinda. 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. With a territorial area of 1,823 km², it is the most populous municipality in the province and the ninth most populous in the country.

There are considerable offshore oil reserves nearby.

Cabinda emerged around the year 1490, its formation largely influenced by its geography (the Bay of Cabinda), which allowed the construction of a busy port. It later became a Portuguese trading post in 1620 and was turned into a Portuguese fortification in 1783, which contributed to the concentration of a political-military class and administrative services, granting it a zone of influence. However, it was from 1887 onward—when it became the seat of an administrative district, capital of the Congo district (now the province of Uíge) and of the Portuguese Congo Protectorate—that Cabinda effectively became the central city of the area. In 1919 it finally became the capital of Cabinda Province and was elevated to the category of city on 28 May 1956. After Angolan independence, it retained its status as a provincial capital.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.