ABSTRACT
Slightly greater in size than the Republic of South Africa, and fourteen times the size of Portugal, Angola is Portugal’s largest overseas territory, with 250,000 white settlers. Its capital, Luanda, founded in 1575, is Portugal’s third largest city, and claims to be the oldest European settlement in Africa south of the Sahara. Along with the coffee boom has come the expansion of many towns, both old and new. Luanda, the capital, is a port handling three-quarters of the coffee trade; a new railway to the Congo frontier in the north is being built not only to handle the coffee but for strategic reasons. Maize is the principal food crop of Angola, grown almost entirely by Africans, and occupying the largest area of any crop. Probably over three-quarters is grown on the Bie plateau. Production fluctuates considerably from year to year; in some good years up to half the crop has been exported.
