Lubumbashi

Lubumbashi was founded in 1910 as Élisabethville to serve the copper mines, and it is laid out accordingly: a wide grid, avenues planted with jacaranda and flamboyant, and the slag heap of the old smelter standing over the whole city like a black hill. It is the second city of the country and the centre of the copper and cobalt industry. The national museum here holds one of the better ethnographic collections in the region, and the city has a working art and music scene.

What you actually see

• The grid and avenues - a colonial street plan with jacaranda and flamboyant along it.
• The slag heap - the black hill of smelter waste that dominates the skyline.
• The national museum - Katangan and wider Congolese ethnographic collections.
• The colonial buildings - the cathedral, the old post office and the station on the main axes.

When to go

May to September is the dry season and the most comfortable, with cool nights in June and July. The jacarandas flower around September and October. The wet season from November brings heavy afternoon storms.

Honest expectations

There is limited conventional sightseeing and the city is a working industrial centre. Mining areas around it are not open and photography near industrial sites is unwise. Facilities are better than elsewhere in the country but power and water supply are still unreliable.

Nearby

Kiubo falls and Kundelungu are north, and the Zambian border is south of the city.