Urua

Urua is a broad name for the Luba country in the interior west of Lake Tanganyika. Its political traditions reached beyond the Luba kingdom itself, connecting a wider range of peoples to its rulers and their prestige. In the kingdom's heartland between the Lualaba and Lomami rivers, salt and iron helped sustain exchanges, while the lakes and floodplains of the Upemba Depression supported fishing and cultivation. The Luba developed forms of kingship able to unite communities under a ruler whose authority extended beyond his own lineage.