Uganda Map

• Owing to the large number of communities, culture within Uganda is diverse. Many Asians (mostly from India) who were expelled during the regime of Amin have returned to Uganda.

• Cricket has experienced rapid growth although football is the most popular sport in Uganda. Recently in the Quadrangular Tournament in Kenya, Uganda came in as the underdogs and went on to register a historic win against archrivals Kenya. Uganda also won the World Cricket League (WCL) Division 3 and came in fourth place in the WCL Division 2. In February 2009, Uganda finished as runner-up in the WCL Division 3 competition held in Argentina, thus gaining a place in the World Cup Qualifier held in South Africa in April 2009. In 2007 the Ugandan Rugby Union team were victorious in the 2007 Africa Cup, beating Madagascar in the final.

• Rallying is also a popular sport in Uganda with the country having successfully staged a round of the African Rally Championship (ARC), Pearl of Africa Rally since 1996 when it was a candidate event. The country has gone on to produce African rally champions such as Charles Muhangi who won the 1999 ARC crown. Other notable Ugandans on the African rally scene include the late Riyaz Kurji who was killed in an fatal accident while leading the 2009 edition, Emma Katto, Karim Hirji, Chipper Adams and Charles Lubega. Ugandans have also featured prominently in the Safari Rally.

• Ugandans have since the early 1920s enjoyed the fast-paced sport of hockey. It was originally played by the Asians, but now it is widely played by people from other racial backgrounds. Hockey is the only Ugandan field sport to date to have qualified for and represented the country at the Olympics; this was at the Munich games in 1972. It is also believed in Ugandan hockey circles that Uganda's first and only Olympic gold medal may have been realized in part by the cheers from the representative hockey team that urged John Akii-Bua forward.

• Also in July of 2011 Kampala,Uganda qualified for the 2011 Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania for the first time beating Dharan LL in Saudi Arabia.

• Illiteracy is common in Uganda, particularly among females. Public spending on education was at 5.2 % of the 2002–2005 GDP. Much public education in primary and secondary schools focus upon repetition and memorization. There are also state exams that must be taken at every level of education. Uganda has both private and public universities. The largest university in Uganda is Makerere University located outside of Kampala. The system of education in Uganda has a structure of 7 years of primary education, 6 years of secondary education (divided into 4 years of lower secondary and 2 years of upper secondary school), and 3 to 5 years of post-secondary education. The present system has existed since the early 1960s.

• Respect for human rights in Uganda has improved significantly since the mid-1980s. There are, however, many areas which continue to attract concern.

• Conflict in the northern parts of the country continues to generate reports of abuses by both the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan Army. A UN official accused the LRA in February 2009 of "appalling brutality" in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The number of internally displaced persons is estimated at 1.4 million. Torture continues to be a widespread practice amongst security organisations. Attacks on political freedom in the country, including the arrest and beating of opposition Members of Parliament, has led to international criticism, culminating in May 2005 in a decision by the British government to withhold part of its aid to the country. The arrest of the main opposition leader Kizza Besigye and the besiegement of the High Court during a hearing of Besigye's case by heavily armed security forces – before the February 2006 elections – led to condemnation.

• Recently, grassroots organisations have been attempting to raise awareness about children who were kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army to work as soldiers or be used as wives. Thousands of children as young as eight were captured and forced to kill. The documentary film Invisible Children illustrates the terrible lives of the children, known as night commuters, who still to this day leave their villages and walk many miles each night to avoid abduction.

• The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants reported several violations of refugee rights in 2007, including forcible deportations by the Ugandan government and violence directed against refugees.

• Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda. Gays and lesbians face discrimination and harassment at the hands of the media, police, teachers and other groups. In 2007, a Ugandan newspaper, The Red Pepper, published a list of allegedly gay men, many of whom suffered harassment as a result. Also on October 9, 2010, the Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone published a front page article—titled "100 Pictures of Uganda's Top Homos Leak"—that listed the names, addresses, and photographs of 100 homosexuals alongside a yellow banner that read "Hang Them". The paper also alleged that homosexuals aimed to "recruit" Ugandan children. This publication attracted international attention and criticism from human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International, No Peace Without Justice and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. According to gay rights activists, many Ugandans have been attacked since the publication. On January 27, 2011, gay rights activist David Kato was murdered. Kato was on Rolling Stone's hitlist. Also a number of other gays and lesbian are missing and are believed to have been murdered.

• The Uganda parliament recently considered an Anti-Homosexuality Bill, if enacted, would have broadened the criminalisation of homosexuality by introducing the death penalty for people who have previous convictions, or are HIV-positive, and engage in same sex sexual acts. The bill also included provisions for Ugandans who engage in same-sex sexual relations outside of Uganda, asserting that they may be extradited back to Uganda for punishment, and included penalties for individuals, companies, media organisations, or non-governmental organisations that support LGBT rights. The private member's bill was submitted by MP David Bahati in Uganda on 14 October 2009, and is believed to have had widespread support in the Uganda parliament. Debate of the bill was delayed in response to global condemnation.

• Ugandan cuisine consists of traditional cooking with English, Arab, Asian and especially Indian influences. Like the cuisines of most countries, it varies in complexity, from the most basic, a starchy filler with a sauce of beans or meat, to several-course meals served in upper-class homes and high-end restaurants.

• Main dishes are usually centered on a sauce or stew of groundnuts, beans or meat. The starch traditionally comes from ugali (maize meal) or matoke (boiled and mashed green banana), in the South, or an ugali made from millet in the North. Cassava, yam and African sweet potato are also eaten; the more affluent include white (often called "Irish") potato and rice in their diets. Soybean was promoted as a healthy food staple in the 1970s and this is also used, especially for breakfast. Chapati, an Asian flatbread, is also part of Ugandan cuisine.

• Uganda is home to many different ethnic groups, none of whom forms a majority of the population. Around forty different languages are regularly and currently in use in the country. English became the official language of Uganda after independence. Ugandan English is a local variant dialect.

• The most widely spoken local language in Uganda is Luganda, spoken predominantly by the Ganda people (Baganda) in the urban concentrations of Kampala, the capital city and in towns and localities in the Buganda region of Uganda which encompasses Kampala. The Lusoga and Runyankore-Rukiga languages follow, spoken predominantly in the southeastern and southwestern parts of Uganda respectively.

• Swahili, a widely used language throughout eastern and central East Africa, was approved as the country's second official national language in 2005, though this is somewhat politically sensitive. Though the language has not been favoured by the Bantu-speaking populations of the south and southwest of the country, it is an important lingua franca in the northern regions. It is also widely used in the police and military forces, which may be a historical result of the disproportionate recruitment of northerners into the security forces during the colonial period. The status of Swahili has thus alternated with the political group in power. For example, Amin, who came from the northwest, declared Swahili to be the national language.

• Uganda’s population has grown from 4.8 million people in 1950 to 24.3 million in 2002. The current estimated population of Uganda is 32.4 million. Uganda has a very young population, with a median age of 15 years.