Gulu

During the British rule in the 19th and 20th centuries, Northern Uganda was less developed than the rest of the country. The people were conscripted into the army and the police, with many sent to fight in the First and Second World Wars. In the 1960s, many Sudanese, Rwandan and Congolese refugees settled in the city. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), under the leadership of Joseph Kony, sprung up in the 1990s after Auma/Lakwena went to Kenya. The LRA became increasingly violent in Gulu and surrounding communities. Up to 15,000 children, known as "night commuters", would flee into the city for safety every evening. In 1996, the Ugandan government ordered all civilians in northern Uganda to relocate to internally displaced person (IDP) camps. Several organizations, such as Stop the Genocide in Northern Uganda, called the camps "concentration camps" and demanded their immediate closure. …

Gulu's climate is tropical wet and dry (Aw) according to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system.

The city is served by Gulu Airport, which has a tarmac runway that measures 10,314 feet (3,144 m). Gulu Airport is the second biggest airport in Uganda after Entebbe International Airport. Gulu has a station on the metre gauge railway that connects Tororo and Pakwach, which had been out of service since 1993. Rift Valley Railways funded the clearing of vegetation and the repair of infrastructure, thus allowing the first commercial train for 20 years to run through Gulu on 14 September 2013.

The national census in 2002 estimated Gulu's population at 119,430. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) estimated the population at 149,900 in 2010. In 2011, UBOS estimated the mid-year population at 154,300. The 2014 population census put the population at 152,276. In 2020, the mid-year population of Gulu City was projected by city division as follows: Bar Dege (47,700), Laroo (32,300), Layibi (43,900) and Pece (53,500), for a total of 177,400.