Kigali Travel Guide, Rwanda

Kigali Travel Guide – The Province of Kigali and the Centre of Rwanda

This Kigali travel guide will give you the basic facts concerning this large city that functions as the capital of Rwanda. It has a population of over 850.000 inhabitants and its central location in the country have made it Rwanda’s most important economical and administrative city since it was established as capital in the independence year 1962. All presidential offices and government buildings are located in Kigali and, although the city is split into three different areas for better management, the entire province of Kigali City is administered by itself and it was recently enlarged to fit the new vision the government has on the territory. The urban area covered by Kigali proper covers almost 70% of the province and it is rapidly expanding.

Kigali Travel Guide – The Rwandan Genocide

The recent history of Rwanda is closely related to the genocide that began in 1994 and lasted over 100 days, affecting not just Kigali, but the whole of Rwanda. Almost one million Tutsi were slaughtered by Hutu militias and the Rwandan Army, which heavily damaged the city, which is yet to recover, especially from the psychological trauma suffered by the whole territory. This whole battle was carried due to the Hutu power ideology and it also involved Uganda and France, who stepped in for the Hutu regime. At the end of the war over two million Hutus fled from the country and many of them died in refugee camps due to serious epidemics. Today there are several memorial centers and museums dedicated to the event, out of which the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre stands out.

Kigali Travel Guide – Transportation and Accommodation

Transportation in and outside the city is quite well developed, as any Kigali travel guide should mention. The most important element is the Kigali International Airport, with daily flights to Entebbe and Nairobi, but there is also another specific means of travelling internationally, through daily buses that leave from Kigali and reach destinations such as Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania or Burundi – each of these destinations being handled by an independent company. Nationally, you can get anywhere in Rwanda with buses that leave every hour from Kigali. Inside the city, the only available means of transportation is the taxi minibus that has several routes and picks you up from almost anywhere, the equivalent of the cost of a ticket being about 25 cents. The city is currently working on improving business services and tourist attractions in order to attract more funds into the local budget. In fact, tourism is one of the main income sources for Kigali and three international class hotels have recently been built in order to support tourism in the area.

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