Luanda, Angola

Luanda, Angola: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Luanda is the capital and largest city of Angola, situated on the country's northern Atlantic coast. As Angola's primary port and chief seaport, Luanda forms a natural gateway for submarine cable infrastructure connecting Angola to international digital networks. One submarine cable currently lands at Luanda, the 2Africa system, which links Angola to a broad set of countries spanning the African continent, the Middle East, and the Horn of Africa.

The 2Africa cable establishes an intercontinental corridor from Luanda, connecting Angola westward and eastward to destinations including Egypt, Djibouti, Bahrain, Côte d'Ivoire, Comoros, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This range of endpoints positions Luanda as a node in one of the longest submarine cable systems in the world, enabling connectivity across both Atlantic-facing and Indian Ocean-facing regions of Africa as well as into the Arabian Gulf.

Cables Landing at Luanda, Angola

The 2Africa cable is the sole submarine cable landing at Luanda. Stretching approximately 45,000 kilometres, it is one of the longest submarine cable systems ever deployed. The cable reached ready-for-service status in 2024. Its other landing countries include Bahrain, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, and Egypt, forming a sweeping route that touches West Africa, East Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Middle East.

Regional Context

Angola's submarine cable infrastructure spans seven landing points, with Sangano standing out as the most connected, hosting two cables. Luanda shares a single-cable status with Cabinda, Cacongo, Cacuaco, N'zeto, and Soyo, placing it among the majority of Angolan landing points by cable count. While Luanda hosts the same number of cables as several of its Angolan peers, the scale and geographic reach of the 2Africa system distinguishes its international footprint.

Network Role

Luanda functions as a single-cable terminus within Angola's submarine cable geography, anchored entirely to the 2Africa system. Through this cable, the landing point connects Angola's capital directly to a corridor that spans both coastlines of Africa and extends into the Middle East, linking Luanda to endpoints as geographically distant as Bahrain and Djibouti. This intercontinental reach, delivered through a single system, reflects the 2Africa cable's design as a continent-encircling route rather than a point-to-point link.

As Angola's capital and largest city, Luanda's participation in the 2Africa system places it within a regional submarine cable graph that distributes connectivity across multiple Angolan landing points, each serving distinct geographic segments of the country's coastline. The presence of the 2Africa cable at Luanda ensures that Angola's administrative and commercial centre has a direct link to one of the most extensive submarine cable deployments currently in service.