Toro is A) a common brand name of home outdoor tools. B) What matadors say when they are shouting at a bull while waving a red flag in a bullfight, supposedly. "Toro" is Spanish for "bull."

More about A: The Toro Company started in 1914. It is based in Bloomington, Minnesota. Toro makes the equipment which maintains 75 of the top 100 golf courses in the US, according to their web site. For home users, Toro makes lawnmowers, tractors, snowthrowers/snowblowers, sprinklers, blower vacuums and hedge trimmers. Toro equipment can be bought or rented at construction megastores like Home Depot or local hardware stores. Recently Toro released the iMow, a lawnmower which can move around on its own and cut within a defined space while you sip lemonade in the hammock. Toro also makes golf-cart like maintenance vehicles for groundskeeping and vehicles for grooming baseball infields. From aerators to sprinklers to tractors, Toro makes all sorts of outdoor machinery. Oh yeah, the machines are almost always painted red.


Toro is one of the four kingdoms of Uganda, lying in the west of the country near the Ruwenzori Mountains on the border with Congo (Kinshasa). The capital is Fort Portal, and the language is called Rutoro.

Toro was founded in 1822 as an offshoot of the Bunyoro kingdom, its founder Olimi I Kaboyo I being the son of the Mukama (king) of Bunyoro. The two were reunited between 1876 and 1891, and 1893-4, and also briefly in a period of great confusion in the decade or so before that. All the kingdoms of Uganda were abolished between 1967 and 1993.

The dynasty is called Babito. The following are the kings of Toro since its restoration:

  1. Kasagama Kyebambe IV 1891-1928
  2. George David Matthew Kamurasi Rukidi III 1929-1965
  3. Patrick David Matthew Rwamuhokya Olimi III Kaboyo II 1966-1995
  4. Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV 1995-
Mukama Rukidi IV was born in 1992, so there is currently a regency.

His aunt, a sister of Kaboyo II, is Elizabeth Bagoyo, also known as Princess Elizabeth of Toro, who was not only a world-renowned fashion model but also the foreign minister in Idi Amin's government.

A more accurate rendering of the Rutoro language gives the names Tooro, Rutooro, Babiito dynasty, and Omukama for the king.

Toro is also Japanese for the preferred cut of tuna used in sushi. Often translated on menus as "fatty tuna", it comes from the flesh on the belly of the fish. The more usual cut is maguro.
