KUITO

also spelled Cuito, formerly Silva Porto, Bi, or Bih, town (founded 1890), central Angola. It is the chief trade and market centre of the fertile Bi Plateau and processes rice and other grains, coffee, meat, and beeswax. The town suffered much damage in the civil war following independence in 1975 and was almost totally destroyed in the fighting following multiparty elections in 1992. The Benguela Railroad, crossing the country from east to west, passes just north of Kuito. The Portuguese explorer Antnio Francisco Ferreira da Silva Porto, for whom the original settlement was named, had homesteaded and built a stockade nearby and in 1890 died there. Pop. (1970 prelim.) 18,941.