Luanda Province

Luanda concentrates Angola's power with primate city intensity: over 8 million inhabitants in a nation of 35 million, hosting nearly all national institutions and absorbing the oil wealth that constitutes 95% of exports. Portuguese colonial planners built the city as an extraction hub; post-independence patterns only deepened the concentration. During the 1975-2002 civil war, Luanda offered relative safety that drew migrants from conflict-ravaged provinces, creating slums that now house millions.

The province demonstrates resource-curse urban geography: oil revenue flows through state accounts controlled from Luanda, funding construction booms that employ millions but produce little exportable beyond hydrocarbons. The city's consumption economy—importing half the nation's food—creates dependency on oil-funded imports rather than domestic production linkages. Industrial parks and logistics zones serve oil operations rather than diversified manufacturing.

GDP growth reached 4.4% nationally in 2024, the strongest in five years, yet consumer confidence sits at its lowest since 2020. More than one-third of Angolans live on less than $2.15 daily despite oil wealth. Luanda embodies this paradox: gleaming towers financed by oil surrounded by informal settlements where the wealth never arrives. The province's future depends on whether diversification rhetoric translates into genuine alternative employment—or whether the capital remains an extraction economy with nothing to extract once offshore fields deplete.