Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country situated at the crossroads of Central, Southern, and East Africa. It is typically referred to as being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa.
Location of Zambia in Africa.
Zambia is bordered to the north by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique to the southeast, Zimbabwe and Botswana to the south, Namibia to the southwest, and Angola to the west. The capital city of Zambia is Lusaka, located in the south-central part of Zambia.
Historical Insights
Archaeological excavation work on the Zambezi Valley and Kalambo Falls shows a succession of human cultures. Modern Zambia was once inhabited by the Khoisan and Batwa peoples until around AD 300, when migrating Bantu began to settle the areas. It is believed the Khoisan people originated in East Africa and spread southwards around 150,000 years ago.
It is believed that modern humans, Homo sapiens, have inhabited the region since 20,000 BC. In 1921, the Broken Hill skull was discovered in Zambia.
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The Bantu people or Abantu (meaning people) are an enormous and diverse ethnolinguistic group that comprise the majority of people in much of eastern, southern and central Africa. Many of the historical events in these three regions happened simultaneously. Thus, Zambia's history, like that of many African nations, cannot be presented perfectly chronologically.
Batonga fisherwomen in Southern Zambia.
The Bantu people originally lived in West and Central Africa around what is today Cameroon and Nigeria. Approximately 5000 years ago, they began a millennia-long expansion into much of the continent. This event has been called the Bantu expansion; it was one of the largest human migrations in history. The Bantu are believed to have been the first to have brought iron working technology into large parts of Africa.
The first Bantu people to arrive in Zambia came through the eastern route via the African Great Lakes. They arrived around the first millennium C.E, and among them were the Tonga, Ila and Namwanga people and other related groups, who settled around Southern Zambia near Zimbabwe. These first Bantu people lived in large villages. They lacked an organised unit under a chief or headman and worked as a community and helped each other in times of field preparation for their crops. Villages moved around frequently as the soil became exhausted as a result of the slash-and-burn technique of planting crops.
The first Bantu communities in Zambia were highly self-sufficient. Early European missionaries who settled in Southern Zambia noted the independence of these Bantu societies. "[If] weapons for war, hunting, and domestic purposes are needed, the [Tonga] man goes to the hills and digs until he finds the iron ore. He smelts it and with the iron thus obtained makes axes, hoes, and other useful implements. He burns wood and makes charcoal for his forge. His bellows are made from the skins of animals and the pipes are clay tile, and the anvil and hammers are also pieces of the iron he has obtained.
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These early Bantu settlers also participated in the trade at the site Ingombe Ilede (which translates to sleeping cow in Tonga because the fallen baobab tree appears to resemble a cow) in Southern Zambia. At this trading site, they met numerous Kalanga/Shona traders from Great Zimbabwe and Swahili traders from the East African Swahili coast. The goods traded at Ingombe Ilede included fabrics, beads, gold, and bangles.
The second mass settlement of Bantu people into Zambia was of people groups that are believed to have taken the western route of the Bantu migration through the Congo Basin. The Bemba, along with other related groups such as the Lamba, Bisa, Senga, Kaonde, Swaka, Nkoya and Soli, formed integral parts of the Luba Kingdom in Upemba part of the Democratic Republic of Congo and have a strong relation to the Luba people.
Over time, these communities learned to use nets and harpoons, make dugout canoes, clear canals through swamps and make dams as high as 2.5 meters (8 ft 2 in). As a result, they grew a diverse economy trading fish, copper and iron items and salt for goods from other parts of Africa, like the Swahili coast and, later on, the Portuguese.
The Luba Kingdom was a large kingdom with a centralised government and smaller independent chiefdoms. It had large trading networks that linked the forests in the Congo Basin and the mineral-rich plateaus of what is today Copperbelt Province and stretched from the Atlantic coast to the Indian Ocean coast. Literature was well developed in the Luba Kingdom.
In the same region of Southern Congo, the Lunda people were made into a satellite of the Luba empire and adopted forms of Luba culture and governance, thus becoming the Lunda Empire to the south. According to Lunda genesis myths, a Luba hunter named Chibinda Ilunga, son of Ilunga Mbidi Kiluwe, introduced the Luba model of statecraft to the Lunda sometime around 1600 when he married a local Lunda princess named Lueji and was granted control of her kingdom.
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Most rulers who claimed descent from Luba ancestors were integrated into the Luba empire. The Lunda, like its parent state Luba, also traded with both coasts, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The Luba-Lunda states eventually declined as a result of both Atlantic slave trade in the west and Indian Ocean slave trade in the east and wars with breakaway factions of the kingdoms.
The Chokwe eventually were defeated by the other ethnic groups and the Portuguese. This instability caused the collapse of the Luba-Lunda states and a dispersal of people into various parts of Zambia from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In the 1200s, before the founding of the Luba-Lunda states, a group of Bantu people started migrating from the Congo Basin to Lake Mweru then finally settled around Lake Malawi. These migrants are believed to have been one of the inhabitants around the Upemba area in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 1480 the Maravi Empire was founded by the kalonga (paramount chief of the Maravi) from the Phiri clan, one of the main clans, with the others being Banda, Mwale and Nkhoma.
The Maravi Empire stretched from the Indian Ocean through what today is Mozambique to Zambia and central parts of Malawi. The political organisation of the Maravi resembled that of the Luba and is believed to have originated from there. Iron was also manufactured and exported. In the 1590s the Portuguese endeavoured to take monopoly over Maravi export trade. This attempt was met with outrage by the Maravi of Lundu, who unleashed their WaZimba armed force.
The Maravi are also believed to have brought the traditions that would become Nyau secret society from Upemba. The Nyau form the cosmology or indigenous religion of the people of Maravi. As Great Zimbabwe was in decline, one of its princes, Nyatsimba Mutota, broke away from the state forming a new empire called Mutapa.
The Mutapa Empire ruled territory between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers, in what is now Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, from the 14th to the 17th century. By its, peak Mutapa had conquered the Dande area of the Tonga and Tavara. The Mutapa Empire predominately engaged in the Indian Ocean transcontinental trade with and via the WaSwahili. Like their contemporaries in Maravi, Mutapa had problems with the arriving Portuguese traders.
The peak of this uneasy relationship was reached when the Portuguese attempted to influence the kingdoms internal affairs by establishing markets in the kingdom and converting the population to Christianity. This action caused outrage by the Muslim WaSwahili living in the capital, this chaos gave the Portuguese the excuse they were searching for to warrant an attack on the kingdom and try to control its gold mines and ivory routes.
In the 1600s internal disputes and civil war began the decline of Mutapa. The Portuguese also had vast estates, known as Prazos, and they used slaves and ex-slaves as security guards and hunters. They trained the men in military tactics and gave them guns. These men became expert elephant hunters and were known as the Chikunda. After the decline of the Portuguese the Chikunda made their way to Zambia.
It is hypothesised by Julian Cobbing that the presence of early Europeans slave trading and attempts to control resources in various parts of Bantu-speaking Africa caused the gradual militarisation of the people in the region. The Portuguese presence in the region was also a major reason for the founding of the Rozvi Empire, a breakaway state of Mutapa.
The ruler of the Rozvi, Changamire Dombo, became one of the most powerful leaders in South-Central Africa's history. But perhaps the most notable instance of this increased militarisation was the rise of the Zulu under the leadership of Shaka. Pressures from the English colonialists in the Cape and increased militarisation of the Zulu resulted in the Mfecane (the crushing).
This caused mass displacements, wars and raids throughout Southern, Central and Eastern Africa as Nguni or Ngoni tribes made their way throughout the region and is referred to as the Mfecane. The arriving Nguni under the leadership of Zwagendaba crossed the Zambezi river moving northwards. The Ngoni were the final blow to the already weakened Maravi Empire.
In the western part of Zambia, another Southern African group of Sotho-Tswana heritage called the Kololo manage to conquer the local inhabitants who were migrants from the fallen Luba and Lunda states called the Luyana or Aluyi. The Luyana established the Barotse Kingdom on the floodplains of the Zambezi upon their arrival from Katanga.
One of the earliest recorded Europeans to visit the area was the Portuguese explorer Francisco de Lacerda in the late 18th century. Lacerda led an expedition from Mozambique to the Kazembe region in Zambia (with the goal of exploring and to crossing Southern Africa from coast to coast for the first time), and died during the expedition in 1798.
Other European visitors followed in the 19th century. The most prominent of these was David Livingstone, who had a vision of ending the slave trade through the "3 Cs": Christianity, Commerce, and Civilisation. He was the first European to see the magnificent waterfalls on the Zambezi River in 1855, naming them the Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
Locally the falls are known as "Mosi-o-Tunya" or "thundering smoke" in the Lozi or Kololo dialect. The town of Livingstone, near the Falls, is named after him.
In 1889, Britain established control over Zambia calling it Northern Rhodesia after a man called Cecil Rhodes. To the east, in December 1897 a group of the Angoni or Ngoni (originally from Zululand) rebelled under Tsinco, son of King Mpezeni, but the rebellion was put down, and Mpezeni accepted the Pax Britannica.
That part of the country then came to be known as North-Eastern Rhodesia. North-Eastern Rhodesia and Barotziland-North-Western Rhodesia were administered as separate units until 1911 when they were merged to form Northern Rhodesia, a British protectorate.
In 1923, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), a conquered territory which was also administered by the BSA Company, became a self-governing British colony. In 1953, the creation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland grouped together Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland (now Malawi) as a single semi-autonomous region.
This was undertaken despite opposition from a sizeable minority of the population, who demonstrated against it in 1960–61. Northern Rhodesia was the centre of much of the turmoil and crisis characterising the federation in its last years. A two-stage election held in October and December 1962 resulted in an African majority in the legislative council and an uneasy coalition between the two African nationalist parties.
The federation was dissolved on 31 December 1963, and in January 1964, Kaunda won the only election for Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia. The Colonial Governor, Sir Evelyn Hone, was very close to Kaunda and urged him to stand for the post. Northern Rhodesia became the Republic of Zambia on 24 October 1964, with Kenneth Kaunda as the first president.
Independence and Beyond
Zambia’s first post-independence leader was President Kenneth Kaunda who ruled the country for 27 years from 1964 to 1991. At independence, despite its considerable mineral wealth, Zambia faced major challenges. Domestically, there were few trained and educated Zambians capable of running the government, and the economy was largely dependent on foreign expertise.
From 1972 to 1991, Zambia was a one-party state with UNIP as the sole legal political party under the motto "One Zambia, One Nation" coined by Kaunda. Kaunda was succeeded by Frederick Chiluba of the social-democratic Movement for Multi-Party Democracy in 1991, beginning a period of socio-economic development and government decentralisation.
Zambia has successfully avoided the war and turmoil that have characterized the post-colonial years of many African nations.
Geographical and Natural Wonders
Zambia is a landlocked country located in Africa. Zambia is roughly three times the size of the United Kingdom and is slightly larger than the state of Texas. The highest point in Zambia is the Mafinga Peak. The longest river in Zambia is the Zambezi River.
Zambia is home to the UNESCO-listed Victoria Falls in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park – the world’s largest curtain of falling water. The falls span the entire breadth of the Zambezi River at more than 1,700m wide and drop approximately 108m. The falls were named in 1855 after the British Queen Victoria, by Scottish explorer David Livingstone.
The Victoria Falls are home to the Devil’s Pool, a natural pool that can be safely swum in during the dry season. Zambia is also home to the second-highest waterfall in Africa after the Tugela Falls in South Africa. Zambia is part-home to the world’s largest artificial lake by volume.
Stunning Aerial Footage of Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls.
Wildlife and Nature
Zambia is home to the near-blind species of Ansell’s mole-rats which can sense magnetic fields with their eyes according to a recent study.
You’ll find all of Africa’s Big Five animals in Zambia. The Big Five animals are lions, elephants, leopards, rhinoceros and Cape buffalos. South Luangwa National Park in eastern Zambia is a protected area for these animals. The park is also home to over 400 species of birds. Zambia is also home to wild dogs, one of the most endangered species in the world. Zambia is one of only six countries where wild dogs still live. You’ll also see the critically endangered black rhinos and shoebill storks. The wonderful wildlife living in Zambia is why safaris are so popular here.
Languages and Culture
It’s thought that Zambia has more than 70 languages, although many of them are considered dialects. The official language of Zambia is English, however, there are over 72 languages spoken in the country. The seven local languages taught in schools and used in official communications are Bemba, Konde, Lozi, Luna, Luvale and Nyanja and Tonga. The most widely spoken and understood of these languages are Bemba and Nyanja.
Flag Symbolism
Zambia’s flag has a green background with an orange eagle and vertical stripes of red, black and orange at the fly end. The green symbolises agriculture, red is for the freedom struggle, black for the African people and orange for copper.
On 24 October 1964, Zambia became independent of the United Kingdom and it was on this day that officials raised the Zambian national flag for the first time. The flag is green with an orange coloured eagle flying over a rectangular block of three vertical stripes in red, black, and orange. These symbolise patriotism and the nation’s wealth. The red colour represents the struggle for freedom. The black represents the people of Zambia. Orange symbolises the nation’s mineral wealth and green, its natural resources. The flying eagle represents the freedom in Zambia and the ability of the country to rise above its problems.
Here's a summary of the flag's symbolism:
| Color | Symbolism |
|---|---|
| Green | Agriculture |
| Red | Freedom Struggle |
| Black | African People |
| Orange | Copper (Mineral Wealth) |
| Eagle | Freedom and Ability to Rise Above Problems |
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