The kingdom of Benguela was created in 1615 in response to the current context at the time and the need, then identified by the Portuguese crown, to make the land connection between the West African coast and Mozambique, aiming at the fortification and consolidation of the kingdom of Portugal.

At that time, Angola was geographically structured by "three kingdoms", being that of Khongo, then feudatory in Portugal, that of Angola and that of Benguela, with autonomous administrative regimes, under orders from a governor with the function of Captain Lieutenant of Angola.

To this end, the conquerors of the time, in the service of the Portuguese crown, massacred and subjected the Vandombe populations of Cingongo to slavery (whose socio-political system, being pastoral peoples, was unstable) and built a prison. However, there would be no possibility of exploring the region as predicted, nor was the location of the city the most favorable, due to the existence of swamps and a subsoil whose main resource was copper, whose quality was below expectations.

In these conditions, emerging between mercantile backyards, a commercial warehouse was developed, fed by the slave owners, which took the designation of Mbaka, from which the architectural configuration of the current city of Benguela arose.

Until the century XIX the route from Mbaka interconnected with the rest of the hinterland through Mbalundu or passing through Kakonda Ciyaka, Cipeyo, Wambu and Sambu, with a view to reaching the kovongo, as it is the important countryman from Bié that gave access to the rest of Africa .

After the prehistoric communities, the Bantu ethnolinguistic spread came to create the institutional premises that allowed the installation, between 1615 and 1975, of people from other regions of the continent or other continents, such as Portuguese, Dutch, French, Brazilians, Arabs, Jews and Senegalese.

The regional industrialization started at the end of the century XIX, with the sugar factories, the port and the railway network, it was attracting a varied workforce from different parts of the world With the change in European penetration strategies, from the middle of the century. XIX, there was an escalation of conflicts in all Angolan territory, except in Cabinda, out of respect for the protection treaties signed with the Portuguese.

In 1885, the various colonizing European powers signed the so-called Berlin agreements, in which they were established treaties with a view to delimiting the various territories of Africa.

In addition to the progressive definition of the Angolan border, through specific agreements with neighboring colonizing countries, the agreements provided for the installation of an effective Government of the territory, which implied an intensification of the military occupation and an increase in incentives for settling farmers in the interior of the country, under penalty of loss of recognition of the right to the colony by the other European countries,essentially France, Holland, Germany, Belgium and England. From 1869 onwards, Angola started to have 3 districts: Luanda, Benguela and Mozâmedes (Namibe).

Later, the villages of Bocoio, Balombo and Ganda were created in Benguela. The foundation of the city of Lobito in 1913 had a different motivation, since it occurred as a response to international geopolitics, through investment in the area of ​​transport, which resulted in the construction of the Benguela Railway and the Lobito Commercial Port, for connecting the interior of Africa to colonizing Europe. The drop in the international price of sisal changed Benguela's course.

The conversion of economic activity was made through a bet on fishing. The Benguela coast is very rich in fishing resources and the development of fishing activity has led to the growth of the resident population. From 1940 onwards people of other origins, such as the Germans, Cape Verdeans and São Toméans, flowed in a large scale to the region.

From 1961 to 020 Benguela changed the socio-cultural mosaic considerably. At the same time that the populations of European origin emigrated because of the war, this same reason made the populations of the interior of the country to migrate to the coast.