Lake Katwe – Harvesting Salt for over 600 Years
Visit Lake Katwe Salt Works near Queen Elizabeth Park
Lake Katwe Salt Works, where salt mining has been taking place for over 600-years. The Lake is one of the many explosion craters found in and near Queen Elizabeth Park. The crater lakes, including Lake Katwe, were formed through volcanic eruptions that shaped much of this area.
Lake Katwe Salt Works is the leading salt producer in all of Uganda. Lake Katwe is about nine kilometers long, and it is a shallow lake; the most profound part is six meters. For over 600-Years, there has been salt mining here. Traders and others have been coming here to buy locally “aha katwe.”
Salt harvesting used to be like mining Gold, and it brought a tidy profit to the community and workers. Today its value has gone down dramatically since Salt is in abundance in Uganda and beyond. Ugaimportsting Salt from other countries rather ting salt from Lake Katwe.
The first Westerner to come here was Henry Morton Stanley. Today you can take a guided walk in the Lake Katwe Salt Mining Works and the Village of Katwe, where the salt workers live.
The Visit to Lake Katwe gains you a cultural and historical insight into salt trading in the past and salt mining in the area today. It is a half-day activity while visiting Queen Elizabeth Park in Uganda, and a time to meet the people who harvest the Salt from Lake Katwe, a task that is as tough today as it was in the past.
Lake KaSaltWorksorks will show you how the Salt here is harvested. The salt mining portion of the Lake is divided into various plots, called salt pans. There are over 800 registered salts, and Woodward and earth show the 
border of each square-like salt pan.
The guided tour shows you the various ways Salt is produced. In ancient times, Salt produced here was seen and treated like precious metal, and multiple Kingdoms in Western Uganda fought over control of the Lake.
The Lake does not support any wildlife since it is simply too salty, and that same Salt makes work here for the men and women quite dangerous, and they work without protective gear to speak of. The process of harvesting salt has not changed during the last 600 years. A German company erected a Factory that operated for a mere month when the pipes corroded. The old factory is a part of the guided, and it. It begins on a path that has been used for hundreds of years. The same way has been used to carry the Salt from the Lake to the processing area.
You will come across a network of paths that have been constructed along with grass huts that provide some relief from the blaze of the equatorial sun since Lake Katwe is just on the equator. During your time here, you experience the toughness of lof for the hundreds of workers you will see along your guided walk here, and the fantastic thing is that nothing has changed in the way the Salt is harvested over the years. It is the primary source of income for most here.
Salt is harvested here in two —the mining of Rock Salt and Salt Winning. Men mine the rock salt in the middle of the Lake. Men and women in the salt pans do Salt-Willing
The Lake is also a source of black mud called Trona, and it is turned into fertilizer and is also used in making glass. Salt mining, however, has some adverse effects on people’s health and the environment.
Visit the Lake Katwe Salt Works while in Queen Elizabeth Park in Uganda.
