The 14 million Baganda (singular Muganda; often referred to simply by the root word and adjective, Ganda) make up the largest Ugandan region, representing approximately 16% of Uganda's population.

[6][7]Ganda villages, sometimes as large as forty to fifty homes, were generally located on hillsides, leaving hilltops and swampy lowlands uninhabited, to be used for crops or pastures.

During the late 19th century, Ganda villages became more dispersed as the role of the chiefs diminished in response to political turmoil, population migration, and occasional popular revolts.

[11] Ganda oral history has no mention of the Chwezi and according to the historian Christopher Wrigley, "It is unlikely that Buganda was fully integrated into the system that was probably not called Kitara.

[17] The first Europeans to enter the Kingdom of Buganda were British explorers John Hanning Speke and Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton while searching for the headwaters of the Nile in 1862.

[24] In September 2009, some members of the minority[25] Banyala ethnic group, led by the recently retired UPDF Captain Isabanyala Baker Kimeze,[26] announced that Bugerere had seceded from the Kingdom of Buganda.

[27] Because of the resulting tensions, the government of Uganda prevented the Kabaka of Buganda from traveling to Bugerere, leading to riots in the capital Kampala and its neighboring districts.

[28] On July 31, 2023, Buganda unveiled portraits of its former kings (bassekabaka) based on oral narrations and written histories dating back to the founding of the kingdom.

At Buganda's capital, Lubaga, Stanley found a well-ordered town surrounding the king's palace, which was situated atop a commanding hill.

Thronging the grounds were foreign ambassadors seeking audiences, chiefs going to the royal advisory council, messengers running errands, and a corps of young pages.

The importance of these rapid means of communication in what the anthropologist Audrey Richards has called a "pedestrian state", especially one whose terrain is covered with dense vegetation and contains innumerable papyrus swamps and streams, is evident.

They enabled the king and his officials at the capital to maintain close political contact even with outlying parts of the kingdom, all of which could easily be reached by a runner within a day or two.

Buganda's excellent means of communication enabled the Kabaka "to maintain active control over a territory one quarter the size of England without written communication and with no means of travel on land beyond the human foot" [38][39] When John Hanning Speke visited Buganda in 1862, he described the kingdom's roads as being "as long as our coach-roads, cut through the long grasses, straight over the hills and down through the woods in the dells—a strange contrast to the wretched tracks in all the adjacent countries.

These messengers were called bakayungirizi and were trained from an early age in prolonged, rapid marches, moving night and day with only short breaks; king Mutesa had many in his service.

[44][45][46] The Baganda army consisted of district levies and each was headed by a royal-appointed chief or governor and remained the basic unit of military organization.

Mutesa led an army of 125,000 warriors supported by 230 war canoes during his campaign against tbe Sesse Islanders [46] In the 1890s, raiding parties of up to 20,000 Baganda were mobilized to plunder the rival kingdom of Bunyoro.

[52][46] In the year 1800, a military campaign involving canoes was undertaken by the Kabaka Kamanya against the Luo speaking Lango people north of Buganda.

They decided to send 100 canoes to Jinja, where they would be disassembled and carried overland through Busoga to the Nagombwa river, where they would be reassembled and proceed to attack the Lango in their rear.

These seven clans are referred to as the Nansangwa, or the indigenous:[55] The Abalasangeye dynasty came to power through the conquests of Kabaka of Buganda ssekabaka Kintu,[56][57][58][59] which are estimated to have occurred sometime between 1200 and 1400 AD.

[65] This crop does not require shifting cultivation or bush fallowing to maintain soil fertility, and as a result, Ganda villages were quite permanent.

The Fundi Kisule, who learnt his art from Mackay, is an accomplished blacksmith and gunsmith, and will make a new spring or repair any damaged rifle with admirable workmanship.

The explorer John Hanning Speke witnessed the Ganda army returning from Bunyoro with "immense numbers of cows, women and children, but not men, for they were killed".

Many princesses became spirit wives by ‘marrying’ the Balùbaalè (national deities) and were thus able to mobilise creative power to influence the king and the queen mother.

One princess, the favorite wife of the king, and another titled woman in Mukaabya Mutesa's court were instrumental in deposing the Katikkiro (prime minister), Kayira, because they felt he had claimed too much power.

Queen Nanano belonged to the Ngo (Leopard) clan, which brought prestige to her clan-mates, who initiated a new name for their daughters: Nnabulya (we also ruled).

[99][97][100] Several actors and actresses have been very influential in Kiganda drama including Sam Bagenda of the Ebonies, Mariam Ndagire, Aloysius Matovu, Abby Mukiibi, Charles Ssenkubuge, Alex Mukulu, Kato Lubwama, Benon Kibuuka, Nana Kagga, Sarah Kisawuzi, Ashraf Ssemwogerere, Ahmed Lubowa and Hellen Lukoma.

[101] Buganda has several famous writers like Michael Nsimbi, Solomon E. K. Mpalanyi, Edward Namutete Kawere, Ulysses Chuka Kibuuka, and Apollo Kaggwa.

They had made use of their discovery in composition, creating indirectly polyphonies of interweaving melodic lines that would suggest words to a Luganda speaker, as if some spirit were talking to the performers of a xylopnone or to the lone player of a harp (ennanga).

The music would be produced by regular movement, with the fingers or sticks combining two interlocking tone-rows, but the patterns heard would be irregular, often asymmetric and complex.

All the 102 xylophone compositions that were transcribed by Gerhard Kubik In Buganda during the early 1960s reveal an extremely complex structure, and they "fall apart' in perception-generated innerent melodlc-rhythmic patterns.