Kigali | |
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Kigali (Kinyarwanda: [ci.ɡɑ́.ɾi]) is the capital and largest city of Rwanda. It's near the country's geographical centre in a region of rolling hills, with a succession of valleys and ridges joined by steep slopes. The town has been Rwanda's economic, cultural, and transportation hub because it became the capital following independence from Belgian rule in 1962.
In a place controlled by the Kingdom of Rwanda from the 17th century and then by the German Empire, the city was founded in 1908 when Richard Kandt, the colonial resident, chose the site for his headquarters, citing its central location, views and safety. Foreign merchants started to trade in the city during the German era, and Kandt opened some government-run schools for Tutsi Rwandan students. Belgium took control of Rwanda and Burundi during World War I, forming the mandate of Ruanda-Urundi. Kigali remained the seat of colonial administration for Rwanda but Ruanda-Urundi's capital was at Usumbura (currently Bujumbura) in Burundi and Kigali remained a small city with a population of just 6,000 at the time of independence.
Kigali grew slowly during the next decades. It wasn't initially directly affected by the Rwandan Civil War between government forces and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which started in 1990.
Sacramento | |
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Population | 490712 |
Sacramento ( SAK-rə-MEN-toh; Spanish: [sakɾaˈmento], Spanish for ''sacrament'') is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the seat and largest city of Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in Northern California's Sacramento Valley, Sacramento's estimated 2019 population of 513,625 makes it the sixth-largest city in California and the ninth-largest capital in the United States. Sacramento is the seat of the California Legislature and the Governor of California, making it the state's political center and a hub for lobbying and think tanks. Sacramento is also the cultural and economic core of the Sacramento metropolitan area, which at the 2010 census had a population of 2,414,783, making it the fifth-largest in California.Before the arrival of the Spanish, the area was inhabited by the Nisenan, Maidu and other indigenous peoples of California. Spanish cavalryman Gabriel Moraga surveyed and named the Rio del Santísimo Sacramento (Sacramento River) in 1808, after the Blessed Sacrament, referring to the Eucharist in the Catholic Church. In 1839, Juan Bautista Alvarado, Mexican governor of Alta California, granted the responsibility of colonizing the Sacramento Valley to Swiss-born Mexican citizen John Augustus Sutter, who subsequently established Sutter's Fort and the settlement at the Rancho Nueva Helvetia.