Icalo

Icalo lies in the broad country between the Bengo and Kwanza rivers, inland from Luanda. The land is a plain of lowland and gentle hills, with the rivers and their floodplains providing water for gardens and grazing. The Kimbundu-speaking people of the district farmed cassava, beans and maize, and fished in the rivers.

Portuguese influence spread inland from the coastal settlement at Luanda during the seventeenth century, and Capuchin missionaries recorded the country between the two rivers at that time. Trade in cloth, salt and captives linked the plain to the coast, and local leaders organised labour and exchange along the river valleys.

The later city of Caxito lies here.