Uganda 🇺🇬

Uganda is a country in Eastern Africa, one of the 20 entries this site files under that subregion. Treaties and official documents call it Republic of Uganda. Its seat of government is Kampala.

It covers 241,550 km², which ranks it 81st of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind the United Kingdom and just ahead of Ghana. Put next to a country most people can picture, it is almost exactly the same size as the United Kingdom.

The population is about 50.0 million, placing it 31st of 249 by population — between Sudan above it and Spain below. Measured only against its own subregion, it is 9th of 20 in size and 4th in population.

Uganda has no coastline of its own, so every ship-borne import and export crosses somebody else's border first. The good news is that the sea is only one frontier away: DR Congo, Tanzania and Kenya have coastline, which makes them the obvious routes for freight heading to a port.

That geography has practical consequences. Landlocked countries carry higher freight costs than coastal ones because goods change hands, transport mode and jurisdiction more often, and because a neighbour's road, rail or customs problem becomes Uganda's problem too. It is also why transit agreements with bordering states, and access to their ports, tend to matter more in Uganda's foreign policy than the distance on a map would suggest.

Of the countries on Uganda's borders, Rwanda and South Sudan are landlocked as well, so a route in that direction only moves the problem along. The remaining borders are the ones that lead, eventually, to salt water.

Coastal countries on the border:

• 🇨🇩 DR Congo
• 🇹🇿 Tanzania
• 🇰🇪 Kenya

The coordinates the dataset gives are 1.0° N, 32.0° E, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 111 km from the equator, in what geographers would call the equatorial belt.

It is one of the countries that the equator crosses. Malaysia, Kiribati and Singapore sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

Its land neighbours number 5: DR Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan and Tanzania. The largest of them by area is DR Congo, which is also the most populous. Together those neighbours hold about 260.5 million people.

It has no sea coast of its own. That is true of 45 of the 249 entries here, so all seaborne trade runs through a neighbour's ports. 2 of its neighbours, Rwanda and South Sudan, are landlocked too. You can see the full picture on the landlocked countries page.

Spread across 241,550 km², that works out at about 207 people per square kilometre, which makes it densely populated. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 91 per square kilometre.

It recognises 2 languages: English and Swahili. English, the first listed, is shared with 90 other entries worldwide.

People from Uganda are called Ugandans.

Against Africa as a whole it is the 9th most populous of 59 entries, and it accounts for 10% of everyone living in Eastern Africa.

Zoom in from the world to Eastern Africa and Uganda sits 4th of 20 by population and 9th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Kenya just above and Mozambique just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

Ethiopia is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in Eastern Africa has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇰🇪 Kenya
• 🇲🇿 Mozambique
• 🇪🇹 Ethiopia

It uses the Ugandan shilling (Sh, UGX). No other entry in this dataset uses it, so the currency is specific to Uganda.

Kampala is the seat of government and the answer most quizzes are looking for.

The top-level domain is .ug. The international dialling code is +256. Its ISO codes are ug and UGA, which is what most databases and flag files use.

It holds a seat at the United Nations, one of 192 entries here that do. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.

The Ugandan shilling (UGX) is used only in Uganda among the 249 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. English is listed for 91 entries here, Uganda among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.