Lunda - Settlements

The traditional village was a collection of small circular clay houses with straw-thatched roofs, arranged in a circle around a central meeting house. Members of alternate generations would build on opposing hemispheres of the circle. Banana, tobacco, and a few specialty crops would be planted around the periphery, with the main food gardens fanning out some distance from the village. Hectares of forest would separate individual villages. Villages would range in size from less than a dozen individuals to several hundred people in the villages of chiefs or senior headmen. More than 10,000 people were known to have occupied the court of the paramount chief at Musumba.

Today villages of square or rectangular houses tend to form straight lines along roadways and major paths, clustering at crossroads. Small towns, where life takes a more urban tempo, dot Lunda territory.