Officially the country is known as the Republic of Uganda, a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and the south by Tanzania. The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania. Uganda lies within the Nile basin and has a varied but generally equatorial climate. Uganda got its name from the Buganda kingdom, which encompasses a large portion of the south of the country, including the capital Kampala. The people of Uganda were hunter-gatherers until 1,700 to 2,300 years ago when Bantu-speaking populations migrated to the southern parts of the country.

Beginning in the late 1800s, the British ruled the area as a colony and established administrative law across the territory. Uganda gained independence from Britain on October 9, 1962. Intermittent conflicts have marked the period since then, most recently a lengthy civil war waged by the Lord's Resistance Army, which had caused tens of thousands of casualties and displaced more than a million people.

The official language is English. Luganda, a central language, is widely spoken across the country, and multiple other languages are also spoken, including Swahili. The current president of Uganda is Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who came to power in 1986.