Uganda’s borders were drawn by European powers between 1890 and the 1920s, mostly along latitudes, lakes, rivers and mountain watersheds rather than along the lines of African kingdoms and peoples. The 1890 Anglo-German Agreement put the region in Britain’s sphere, the boundary with the Belgian Congo was fixed around 1910, and the borders with Kenya and Sudan shifted several times before taking their final shape in 1926. The result was a country that brought together several kingdoms and many other societies, and divided some peoples between neighbouring states.
The Berlin Conference and the 1890 deal
The Berlin Conference of 1884–85 did not divide Africa on a map. It set rules for how European powers would recognise each other’s claims, which then had to be settled in bilateral treaties. For the Uganda region, the key treaty was the Anglo-German Agreement of 1890, often called the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty. Germany dropped its interest in Buganda, where its agent Carl Peters had just signed a treaty with Kabaka Mwanga II, and recognised British interests in Zanzibar; Britain handed Germany the North Sea island of Heligoland. The 1° south latitude became the boundary west of Lake Victoria.
None of the African rulers or peoples affected took part. The Imperial British East Africa Company sent Frederick Lugard to Buganda in 1890, and when the company ran short of money, the British government declared a protectorate over Buganda in 1894, extending it in the following years to Bunyoro, Toro, Ankole and Busoga. See our guide to the 1900 Uganda Agreement.
How the borders moved
Uganda’s shape changed several times. In 1902 Britain moved the protectorate’s Eastern Province, the land from the Rift Valley to Lake Victoria’s eastern shore including Kisumu, into the East Africa Protectorate, today’s Kenya, so that the Uganda Railway ran through a single administration. More territory around Lake Turkana went to Kenya in 1926. In the north-west, the Lado Enclave, leased to Belgium’s King Leopold, reverted to Sudan in 1910, and in 1914 the West Nile area was transferred from Sudan to Uganda in exchange for land further east.
In the south-west, the Virunga volcanoes were disputed between Britain, Germany and Belgium until a 1910 conference and boundary commissions in 1911 fixed the line through the volcano summits. That is why Mgahinga’s three volcanoes are shared with Rwanda and Congo today, and why Bwindi runs right up to the Congo border.
Peoples divided by the borders
Many communities found themselves on both sides of the new lines. The Bakonzo of the Rwenzori Mountains and the Alur and Lugbara of West Nile live in both Uganda and Congo. The Acholi, Madi and Kakwa live in Uganda and South Sudan, while the Samia, Iteso and Luo-speaking groups straddle the Kenya border. In Kisoro, near Mgahinga, the Bafumbira share language and culture with Rwanda, and the Batwa, the forest’s original hunter-gatherers, live in all three countries of the Virungas.
Kingdoms inside one protectorate
The protectorate brought together centralised kingdoms in the south and west and societies without kings in the north and east. Britain ruled largely through Buganda, whose chiefs and agents extended colonial administration into other areas, which many other Ugandans experienced as Ganda domination. Buganda also gained counties taken from Bunyoro, the “lost counties”, and the north was used mainly as a source of labour and army recruits. These divisions shaped politics at independence in 1962, the 1966 attack on the Kabaka’s palace and the instability that followed. See our guides to Uganda’s kingdoms and Uganda’s independence.
Borders and gorilla conservation
Mountain gorillas live in two populations: Bwindi, which lies almost entirely in Uganda next to Congo’s small Sarambwe reserve, and the Virunga Massif, shared by Uganda, Rwanda and Congo. Virunga gorilla families can move across the borders, so their protection depends on cooperation between three wildlife authorities, through the Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration. Rangers coordinate patrols and gorilla censuses across the line drawn in 1911. See our guide to the history of Uganda’s national parks.
Frequently asked questions
No. It set the rules; the borders came from later treaties and boundary commissions between 1890 and 1926.
Partly. In the 1890 treaty Germany gave up its claims around Buganda and recognised British Zanzibar, and Britain handed over Heligoland.
Britain moved Uganda’s Eastern Province to the East Africa Protectorate in 1902, with a further transfer in 1926.
Families in the Virunga Massif, around Mgahinga, which is shared with Rwanda and Congo.
