Lobito

Lobito is a city and municipality in the province of Benguela, in Angola, located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the 2018 population projections prepared by the National Institute of Statistics, it has a population of 436,467 inhabitants and a territorial area of 3,648 km², making it the second most populous municipality in the province, behind only Benguela.^[2]

It is bordered to the north by the municipality of Sumbe, to the east by the municipality of Bocoio, to the south by the municipality of Catumbela and to the west by the Atlantic Ocean.

One of the nation’s logistics hubs, it has its connections in the important port and the railway terminals, as well as in the continental road network, which link it to the rest of the country, reaching as far as the eastern coast of Africa.

Etymology

The origin of the word comes from the noun “pitu”, preceded by the classifying particle olu, giving the term “olupitu”, meaning the “door, gangway, passage” that the caravans of porters, descending from the hills coming from the interior, would travel through before reaching the “trading post” of Catumbela; with continued use and time, this common noun became a proper name, losing the initial letter “o”, so “Lupitu” was Portuguesized into “Lobito”.