Where to Stay in Lubumbashi, Province du Haut-Katanga

What is Lubumbashi known for?

On the high plateau of Katanga near the southern border, it grew from a colonial mining town into the second city of the country, and it keeps the great copper mines of the copperbelt, the old colonial avenues of the centre, the smelters and works of the trade, and the wide dry plateau all around. The bare plateau runs to the sky. Smelter smoke drifts over the town.

What are the main landmarks in Lubumbashi?

The old avenues are the pride of Lubumbashi. The wide colonial avenues of the centre, lined with jacarandas and old buildings from the mining days, are the emblem of the city, downtown. A museum holds the country's past.

The national museum of Lubumbashi keeps the art and finds of the region nearby, while the copper mines, the dry plateau, and the wooded savanna mark the country around the city.

What is the history of Lubumbashi?

Copper drew the miners. Early in the last century the Belgians found great beds of copper on the Katanga plateau, and they laid out a mining town they called Élisabethville. The mines built the city.

Around the smelters and the shafts the town grew fast, drawing workers from across the country to dig and smelt the copper of the plateau. The trade made it great. The copper of Katanga went out by rail to the sea, and the town grew into the second city of the Congo, a place of wealth on the plateau.

Art and music filled the streets. In our own age Lubumbashi grew known for its painters and its music, and it kept its mines, its avenues, and its plateau, the capital of the mineral south. The copper still leaves by rail.

Lubumbashi keeps its mining city on the plateau.

Where is Lubumbashi?

Lubumbashi lies in the far south of the Congo, on the Katanga plateau. The city sits on the high plateau of the southern Congo, over a mile above the sea, near the border of Zambia, in a dry land of wooded savanna and mine country, with the plateau stretching away on every side and the copper hills rising to the west. The high plateau runs wide.

Dry woodland rings the town.

What is the climate of Lubumbashi?

Lubumbashi has a mild, dry-winter savanna climate. Warm wet summers and cool dry winters cross the plateau, with a green rainy season and clear cold nights in the dry winter. The rains green the savanna.

Winter nights turn cold.

How do you get to Lubumbashi?

Lubumbashi lies in the far south of the Congo, near Zambia. The railway and the roads run to it from Zambia and the north, and an airport serves the city. Rail traffic runs up over the high plateau to reach the city.

Zambia lies just south.