Now Elisabethville is one of the most important and 
most modern towns in Cen¬ 
tral Africa. Its European 
population is more than 
10.000 inhabitants, while 
the native city numbers 
more than 100.000 people. 
A view of Elisabethville. 
The Johnston falls on the Luapula near Kasenga. 
then opened, l’Etoile du Congo, near Elisabethville. 
For this purpose the plateau rising above the 
Lubumbashi was chosen and the general plan of the 
future city was laid down. It is so that this locality 
is the onley one in the Belgian Congo to have been 
built in the American style, with all its avenues 
being perpendicular. It sprang up in 1910, when 
the rail-road coming from Rhodesia reached the 
area. The name of Queen Elisabeth was given to 
the new town in commemoration of H. R. H. Prince 
Albert’s (later King Albert I) journey to Katanga 
in 1909. 
ELISABETHVILLE 
CAPITAL OF COPPER 
Historical 
survey 
HE town that was to become 
Elisabethville originated and 
developed thanks to the dis¬ 
covery of important copper 
fields and their operation by 
the Union Miniere du Haut 
Katanga. It was built in the 
site called LUBUMBASHI (af¬ 
ter the name of the river meandering through it). 
As early as 1907 the Comite Special du Katanga 
which was in charge of the development of Ka¬ 
tanga on behalf of the Independent State and the 
Compagnie du Katanga, realized that the copper 
industry was going to make rapid strides and that it 
would become necessary to dispose of administrative 
quarters in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
mines and factories. Its representative, Emile Wan- 
germee, was put in charge of transferring the head¬ 
quarters of the CSK, set up in Lukonzolwa (lake 
Moero), to the neighbourhood of the first mine 
Tomb of the former native 
potentate Msiri in Bunkeya. 
ELISABETHVILLE 
KATANGA - BELGIAN CONGO 
Edited by the 
TOURIST BUREAU FOR THE BELGIAN CONGO AND RUANDA-URUNDI 
28, Putterie, Brussels, Phone 12.87.98. 
Published in collaboration with the « Royal Automobile Club du Katanga » 
JANUARY 1954 
Form no 165 
nr 
in 
1 
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