How and why Luanda The Capital city of Angola became the Most Expensive City in the World.
In 2017, Luanda, the Capital city of Angola beat Cities like Hong Kong, London, New York and Singapore to become the most expensive city in the World. What was very interesting about this ranking was that Luanda was the only African City among the Top 20 Europe dominated list. Since then Luanda has become one of the most expensive cities in the world. Today living in Luanda is not cheap and you need to work extremely hard to keep up with the even increasing expenses. But the Big Question is how did a city in a lesser kwon country like Angola before the richest city in the world. Well in this video, we will try our best to tell you what happened that made the city to become so expensive. But first, If you are new here welcome. Be sure to susbcribe and turn on notification so you dodnt miss any of our videos.
Brief history of Luanda.
Luanda is the capital and largest city of Angola, located on the Atlantic coast in southwestern Africa. Luanda has a population of about 9 Million people making it the fourth most populous city in Africa. The history of Luanda dates back to the 16th century, when it was founded by the Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais in 1575. The city was originally built as a fortress to control the trade of slaves and ivory in the region.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Luanda became an important center of the transatlantic slave trade, with thousands of enslaved Africans passing through the city's ports. The city grew rapidly during this time, as Portuguese colonizers and traders settled in the area and established plantations and trading posts in the surrounding countryside.
In the 19th century, Luanda became the capital of the Portuguese colony of Angola, and experienced significant economic growth as a result of the expansion of the coffee and rubber industries. However, the city was also marked by social and economic inequality, with the vast majority of the population living in poverty while a small elite profited from the exploitation of natural resources. Throughout Portugal's dictatorship, known as the Estado Novo, Luanda grew from a town of 61,208 with 14.6% of those inhabitants being white in 1940, to a wealthy cosmopolitan major city of 475,328 in 1970 with 124,814 Europeans (26.3%) and around 50,000 mixed race inhabitants (10.5%)
Oil was eventually discover in Angola and the first oil exploration well in Angola was drilled in 1955 by the Texas Oil Company (later known as Texaco), but it was not until the 1960s that significant oil reserves were discovered.
In 1966, the Portuguese government granted exclusive oil exploration rights to the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company, a subsidiary of the American oil giant Gulf Oil Corporation. Cabinda Gulf Oil Company began drilling in the Cabinda region of northern Angola, and in 1968, it discovered the first major oil field in Angola, the Malongo field.
Following the discovery of the Malongo field, other international oil companies began to invest in Angola's oil industry.
In the mid-20th century, Luanda became a center of anti-colonial resistance, as Angolan nationalists organized protests and armed resistance against Portuguese rule. In 1961, the Angolan War of Independence began, and Luanda was a key battleground in the struggle for independence. The war lasted for 14 years, during which time Luanda was heavily damaged by fighting and bombings.
In 1975, the year that Angola gained independence from Portugal, the country produced around 87,000 barrels of oil per day. By the early 2000s, Angola had become one of the largest oil producers in Africa, with daily production exceeding 1 million barrels.
After Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975, Luanda became the capital of the newly established republic. The city underwent a period of rapid growth and modernization during the 1980s and 1990s, with the construction of new infrastructure, housing, and public facilities.
The growth of Angola's oil industry has had a significant impact on the country's economy and society. Oil revenues account for the majority of Angola's export earnings, and have been used to fund infrastructure development, social programs
