Lubango is the big city of Angola's southern highlands: cool, green and well laid out, perched at 1,760 metres on the Huíla plateau and surrounded by spectacular mountains. It was founded by settlers from Madeira in the late 19th century. It still has a European feel and a mild climate, both a world away from the heat of the coast. A giant Cristo Rei with open arms presides over the city, a sibling of the statues in Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon.
But what makes Lubango a must-see is what surrounds it. Just a few kilometres away lies the Fenda da Tundavala, a dizzying chasm where the plateau breaks off in drops of more than a thousand metres. It is one of the most impressive viewpoints in Africa. Towards the sea, the legendary Serra da Leba winds down the cliff in a run of hairpin bends. Lubango is the perfect base for exploring this whole southern land of mountains, sheer drops and breathtaking landscapes.
This guide takes a practical look at Lubango: what to see in the city and at its Cristo Rei, how to visit Tundavala and the Serra da Leba, how to combine the plateau with the Namibe desert, and where to stay and eat. It is a destination with a friendly climate, grand scenery and colonial charm, in the heart of Angola at its most surprising.
Lubango was founded in 1885 under the name Sá da Bandeira by some 1,500 Portuguese settlers from the island of Madeira, as part of an ambitious plan to farm the high, fertile lands of Huíla. The land was home to Nyaneka-Humbi herding peoples. The city prospered thanks to its mild climate, its farming and the arrival of the Moçâmedes railway. Renamed Lubango after independence in 1975, it is now Angola's second or third city and the capital of a region of extraordinary natural beauty. Its full story is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Where the Namib Desert drops into the Atlantic and the Huíla plateau breaks off in thousand-metre cliffs: dunes, age-old welwitschias, the Cristo Rei of Lubango and the viewpoints of Tundavala and Serra da Leba.
Read the history of The desert south: Namibe and Huíla →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before Lubango existed, the Huíla Plateau was home to Bantu-speaking herders and farmers, mainly Nyaneka-Humbi (Nhaneca-Humbe) communities and other groups from southern Angola. This highland, more than 1.700 metres above sea level, offered a mild climate, water and pasture, very different from the heat of the coast and the desert of neighbouring Namibe. Its people lived from cattle and farming, with cultures rich in traditions and adornments and a deep bond with the land.
The plateau sat between mountains and was cut by spectacular cliffs such as Tundavala and the Serra da Leba escarpment. It was a world apart, hard to reach from the coast. For centuries it stayed outside the Portuguese presence, which was concentrated on the coast and along the trade routes, including the tragic slave trade that affected the whole region.
That relative isolation and the healthy highland climate would later make Huíla a coveted place for European farming settlement. Unlike the tropical, malaria-ridden lowlands, the plateau seemed suitable for settlers, and that was exactly the project that gave rise to Lubango at the end of the 19th century.
The city was founded in 1885, when a group of around 1.500 Portuguese settlers from the island of Madeira settled on the Huíla Plateau as part of an ambitious farming colonisation plan promoted by the Portuguese Crown. They were looking for fertile land and a mild climate where they could recreate a European way of life, and the cool, healthy Huíla highlands seemed ideal. They founded the settlement that would be called Sá da Bandeira, in honour of a prominent Portuguese politician, soldier and abolitionist.
The Madeiran settlers brought their farming techniques, their Catholic faith and their way of building, giving the new city a strongly Portuguese and European character that you can still see today in its layout, its tree-lined squares and its architecture. They developed highland farming, cattle raising and, over time, industry. The religious devotion of those first settlers left traces such as the Capela de Nossa Senhora do Monte.
The big leap came with the Moçâmedes railway, which linked the city to the port of Namibe on the coast, making it possible to ship out farm produce and connect the plateau with the sea. Decades later, to overcome the brutal drop of the escarpment, the legendary Serra da Leba road was built. Sá da Bandeira grew to become the main city in southern Angola and a hub of settlement and trade.
Throughout the 20th century, Sá da Bandeira established itself as a prosperous colonial city and the capital of Huíla district. Its pleasant climate, farming, trade and role as a railway junction attracted people and development. The city gained a cathedral, government buildings, schools and a European-style urban life, with a sizeable Portuguese community permanently settled in the highlands.
One of the great symbols of that era is the Cristo Rei, the monumental statue of Christ with open arms that crowns the Serra da Chela above the city. Designed in 1957 by the Portuguese engineer Frazão Sardinha and inspired by the Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro, it expressed both the city's Catholic faith and its ambition to emulate the great cities of the Portuguese-speaking world. It joined the family of monumental Christ statues that includes those in Rio and Lisbon.
The city also benefited from its exceptional natural setting: the Fenda da Tundavala and the Serra da Leba began to be recognised as scenic wonders. On the eve of independence, Sá da Bandeira was one of the most pleasant and developed cities in Portuguese Angola, strongly marked by its Madeiran founders.
Angola's independence in 1975 brought deep changes. Most of the Portuguese population left the country, including a large part of those living in Sá da Bandeira, in the mass exodus of settlers that followed the end of Portuguese rule. The city was renamed Lubango, taking back a name with local roots, as part of the Africanisation of place names that took place across the country.
Like the rest of Angola, Lubango and Huíla Province were drawn into the long civil war between the MPLA and UNITA, which lasted until 2002. The south was a contested region hit hard by the conflict, with displaced people, hardship and stalled development. The war also left landmines in rural parts of the region, although the city kept its role as the major urban centre of the south.
Despite everything, Lubango held on to its character and its heritage. Its mild climate, its altitude and its relative distance from some of the worst front lines allowed it to remain an urban, educational and commercial reference point. When the war ended, the city entered a period of rebuilding and growth that would make it one of the largest and most dynamic cities in Angola.
Today Lubango is one of Angola's main cities, with close to a million people in its urban area and a leading role as the capital of Huíla and the hub of the country's south. It keeps its charm as a cool, leafy highland city, with its Madeiran heritage visible in its layout and architecture, and a thriving university and commercial life. It's a comfortable, pleasant city, very different from the bustle of Luanda.
For travellers, Lubango is above all the perfect base for discovering the natural wonders of the southern highlands: the Fenda da Tundavala, with its dizzying drops; the Serra da Leba, with its legendary winding road; and the Cristo Rei itself and the city's viewpoints. From here you can head down to the Namibe desert or explore the culture of the peoples of the south, which makes it a crossroads between mountains, desert and coast.
Lubango sums up a story of colonisation, mixing and resilience: from a Nyaneka herding village to a Madeiran city, from prosperous colonial Sá da Bandeira to independent Lubango, which survived the war, and on to the lively city of today. Surrounded by some of the grandest landscapes in Africa, it is one of Angola's least known and most rewarding gems.
