Bigo bya Mugenyi

Bigo bya Mugenyi - bigo means city - is a system of ditches, banks and enclosures dug into the ground on the southern bank of the Katonga river, over an area of several square kilometres in western Uganda, running for more than ten kilometres in total, and it is the largest set of ancient earthworks in the region. Excavation dates the main construction to around the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries and associates it with the Bacwezi, the semi-legendary rulers of the Kitara polity. It is on the World Heritage tentative list.

What you'll find

• The ditch system - more than ten kilometres of dug ditches and banks.
• The central enclosure - the main enclosed area at the heart of the system.
• The Bacwezi association - the site linked to the semi-legendary Kitara rulers.
• The scale - the largest ancient earthworks known in the region.

When to go

June to September and December to February are the drier windows and the best for the roads. Vegetation obscures the earthworks in the rains. A guide is necessary.

Good to know

The earthworks are overgrown and hard to read on the ground; without a guide much of it is invisible. Access roads are rough. There is no visitor centre or interpretation on site.

Nearby

Ntusi is nearby, and Mubende is north.

Key facts