[citation needed] Under British rule, it was declared a district under the name Mongu-Lealui by Hubert Winthrop Young, the Governor of Northern Rhodesia.

[citation needed] Today Mongu remains a predominantly rural urban community with the majority of business found in agronomy.

[citation needed] Mongu is situated on a small blunt promontory of higher ground on the eastern edge of the 30-kilometre-wide Barotse Floodplain of the Zambezi River running north–south, which in the wet season floods right up to the town.

The area has an annual average rainfall of 945 mm falling in the rainy season from late October to April.

[citation needed] The flood usually arrives by January, peaks in April and is gone by June, leaving a floodplain green with new grass on which a population of about 250,000 moves in to graze a similar number of cattle, catch fish and raise crops in small gardens.

Mongu Airport is mainly used by the Zambian Air Force and the United Nations to transport Angolan Refugees back to Angola.