Lado Enclave

The Lado Enclave was an enclave of the Congo Free State situated on the west bank of the Upper Nile in what is now southeast Sudan and northern Uganda that existed from 1894 until 1910.

Lado was part of the Egyptian province of Equatoria until 1894 when Great Britain leased the area to King Leopold II of Belgium to allow Leopold’s Congo Free State access to the navigable Nile. In exchange Belgium agreed to cede a strip of land in eastern Congo when construction of the Cape to Cairo railway was to begin.

The Enclave had an area of about 15,000m&sup2, a population of about 250,000 and its capital at the town of Lado. The Lado enclave was important to the Congo Free State as it included Rejaf, which was the terminus for boats on the Nile. In 1910, the enclave became a province of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan before the southern half was ceded to Uganda in 1912.