Realm
Country in Southeast Africa
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo River, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia to the north, and Mozambique to the east. The capital and largest city is Harare, and the second largest is Bulawayo.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Republic of Zimbabwe”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo River, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia to the north, and Mozambique to the east. The capital and largest city is Harare, and the second largest is Bulawayo.
A country of roughly 17.3 million people per 2026 estimates, Zimbabwe's largest ethnic groups are the Northern Ndebele and Shona, who make up 95% of the total population, followed by the other smaller minorities. Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English, Shona, and Ndebele the most commonly employed. Zimbabwe is a member of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.
The region was long inhabited by the San, and was settled by Bantu peoples around 2,000 years ago. Beginning in the 11th century the Shona people constructed the city of Great Zimbabwe, which became one of the major African trade centres by the 13th century. From there, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe was established, followed by the Mutapa and Rozvi empires. The British Empire began to consolidate control of the area following the 1890 British Ultimatum against the Portuguese, who had claimed the area between Angola and Mozambique in the 1885 Pink Map. The British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes demarcated the Rhodesia region in 1890 when they conquered Mashonaland and later in 1893 Matabeleland after the First Matabele War. Company rule ended in 1923 with the establishment of Southern Rhodesia as a self-governing British colony. In 1965, the white minority government unilaterally declared independence as Rhodesia. The state endured international isolation and a 15-year guerrilla war with black rebel forces; this culminated in a peace agreement that established de jure sovereignty as Zimbabwe in April 1980.
Robert Mugabe became Prime Minister of Zimbabwe in 1980; he was the President of Zimbabwe from 1987, after converting the country's initial parliamentary system into a presidential one (with the abolishment of direct presidential elections as of 2026 it is now an assembly independent system), until his resignation in 2017 following a coup. Under Mugabe's authoritarian regime, the state security apparatus dominated the country and was responsible for widespread human rights violations, which received worldwide condemnation. From 1997 to 2008, the economy experienced consistent decline (and in the latter years, hyperinflation), though it has since seen rapid growth after the use of currencies other than the Zimbabwean dollar was permitted. In 2017, in the wake of over a year of protests against his government as well as Zimbabwe's rapidly declining economy, a coup d'état resulted in Mugabe's resignation. Emmerson Mnangagwa has since served as Zimbabwe's president.
The name "Zimbabwe" stems from a Shona term for Great Zimbabwe, a medieval city (Masvingo) in the country's south-east. Two different theories address the origin of the word. Many sources hold that "Zimbabwe" derives from dzimba-dza-mabwe, translated from the Karanga dialect of Shona as "houses of stones" (dzimba = plural of imba, "house"; mabwe = plural of ibwe, "stone"). The Karanga-speaking Shona people live around Great Zimbabwe in the modern-day Masvingo province. Archaeologist Peter Garlake claims that "Zimbabwe" represents a contracted form of dzimba-hwe, which means "venerated houses" in the Zezuru dialect of Shona and usually references chiefs' houses or graves.
Zimbabwe was formerly known as Southern Rhodesia (1898), Rhodesia (1965), and Zimbabwe Rhodesia (1979). The first recorded use of "Zimbabwe" as a term of national reference dates from 1960 as a coinage by the black nationalist Michael Mawema, whose Zimbabwe National Party became the first to officially use the name in 1961. The term "Rhodesia"—derived from the surname of Cecil Rhodes, the primary instigator of the British colonisation of the territory—was perceived by African nationalists as inappropriate because of its colonial origin and connotations.
According to Mawema, black nationalists held a meeting in 1960 to choose an alternative name for the country, proposing names such as "Matshobana" and "Monomotapa" before his suggestion, "Zimbabwe", prevailed. It was initially unclear how the chosen term was to be used—a letter written by Mawema in 1961 refers to "Zimbabweland"—but "Zimbabwe" was sufficiently established by 1962 to become the generally preferred term of the black nationalist movement. Like those of many African countries that gained independence during the Cold War, Zimbabwe is an ethnically neutral name. It is debatable to what extent Zimbabwe, being over 80% Shona and dominated by them in various ways, can be described as a nation state. The constitution acknowledges 16 languages, but only embraces two of them nationally, Shona and English. Shona is taught widely in schools, unlike Ndebele. Zimbabwe has never had a non-Shona head of the government.
Archaeological records date archaic human settlement of present-day Zimbabwe to at least 500,000 years ago. Zimbabwe's earliest known inhabitants were most likely the San people, who left behind a legacy of arrowheads and cave paintings. Approximately 2,000 years ago, the first Bantu-speaking farmers arrived during the Bantu expansion.
Societies speaking proto-Shona languages first emerged in the middle Limpopo River valley in the 9th century before moving on to the Zimbabwean highlands. The Zimbabwean plateau became the centre of subsequent Shona states, beginning around the 10th century. Around the early 10th century, trade developed with Arab merchants on the Indian Ocean coast, helping to develop the Kingdom of Mapungubwe in the 13th century. This was the precursor to the Shona civilisations that dominated the region from the 13th century, evidenced by ruins at Great Zimbabwe, near Masvingo, and by other smaller sites. The main archaeological site used a unique dry stone architecture. The Kingdom of Mapungubwe was the first in a series of trading states which had developed in Zimbabwe by the time the first European explorers arrived from Portugal. These states traded gold, ivory, and copper for cloth and glass.
By 1300, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe eclipsed Mapungubwe. This Shona state further refined and expanded upon Mapungubwe's stone architecture. 14th-century Zimbabwe is documented in written sources. Ibn Battuta writes about Yūfī, a month's journey from Sofala in Mozambique. Yūfī is said to be home to the Limī people, and gold dust is brought from there to Sofala. Historians identify this as a reference to the Zimbabwe Plateau. From c. 1450 to 1760, the Kingdom of Mutapa ruled much of the area of present-day Zimbabwe, plus parts of central Mozambique. It is known by many names including the Mutapa Empire, also known as Mwene Mutapa or Monomotapa as well as "Munhumutapa", and was renowned for its strategic trade routes with the Arabs and Portugal. In a poem dated to the early 16th century, Ibn Mājid mentions Munāmunāwī as the name of the King of Zabnāwī, names which have been compared to Monomotapa and Zimbabwe respectively. He also mentions Munā-batūra, which may be a reference to the Kingdom of Butua.
The Portuguese sought to monopolise the trade routes in the region and began a series of wars which left the empire in near collapse in the early 17th century. As a direct response to increased European presence in the interior a new Shona state emerged, known as the Rozwi Empire. Relying on centuries of military, political and religious development, the Rozwi (meaning "destroyers") expelled the Portuguese from the Zimbabwean plateau in 1683. Around 1821 the Zulu general Mzilikazi of the Khumalo clan successfully rebelled against King Shaka and established his own clan, the Ndebele. The Ndebele fought their way northwards into the Transvaal, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake and beginning an era of widespread devastation known as the Mfecane. When Dutch trekboers converged on the Transvaal in 1836, they drove the tribe even further northward, with the assistance of Tswana Barolong warriors and Griqua commandos. By 1838 the Ndebele had conquered the Rozwi Empire, along with the other smaller Shona states, and reduced them to vassaldom.
After losing their remaining South African lands in 1840, Mzilikazi and his tribe permanently settled in the southwest of present-day Zimbabwe in what became known as Matabeleland, establishing Bulawayo as their capital. Mzilikazi then organised his society into a military system with regimental kraals, similar to those of Shaka, which was stable enough to repel further Boer incursions. Mzilikazi died in 1868; following a violent power struggle, his son Lobengula succeeded him.
In the 1880s, European colonists arrived with Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company (chartered in 1889). In 1888, Rhodes obtained a concession for mining rights from King Lobengula of the Ndebele peoples. He presented this concession to persuade the government of the United Kingdom to grant a royal charter to the company over Matabeleland, and its subject states such as Mashonaland as well. Rhodes used this document in 1890 to justify sending the Pioneer Column, a group of Europeans protected by well-armed British South Africa Police (BSAP) through Matabeleland and into Shona territory to establish Fort Salisbury (present-day Harare), and thereby establish company rule over the area. In 1893 and 1894, with the help of their new Maxim guns, the BSAP would go on to defeat the Ndebele in the First Matabele War. Rhodes additionally sought permission to negotiate similar concessions covering all territory between the Limpopo River and Lake Tanganyika, then known as "Zambesia". In accordance with the terms of aforementioned concessions and treaties, mass settlement was encouraged, with the British maintaining control over labour as well as over precious metals and other mineral resources.
In 1895, the BSAC adopted the name "Rhodesia" for the territory, in honour of Rhodes. In 1898, "Southern Rhodesia" became the official name for the region south of the Zambezi river, which later adopted the name "Zimbabwe". The region to the north, administered separately, was later termed Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia). Shortly after the disastrous Rhodes-sponsored Jameson Raid on the South African Republic, the Ndebele rebelled against white rule, led by their charismatic religious leader, Mlimo. The Second Matabele War of 1896–1897 lasted in Matabeleland until 1896, when Mlimo was assassinated by U.S. scout Frederick Russell Burnham. Shona agitators staged unsuccessful revolts (known as Chimurenga) against company rule during 1896 and 1897. Following these failed insurrections, the Rhodes administration subdued the Ndebele and Shona groups and organised the land with a disproportionate bias favouring Europeans, thus displacing many indigenous peoples.
The United Kingdom annexed Southern Rhodesia on 12 September 1923. Shortly after annexation, on 1 October 1923, the first constitution for the new Colony of Southern Rhodesia came into force. Under the new constitution, Southern Rhodesia became a self-governing British colony, subsequent to a 1922 referendum. Rhodesians of all races served on behalf of the United Kingdom during the two World Wars in the early-20th century. Proportional to the white population, Southern Rhodesia contributed more per capita to both the First and Second World Wars than any other part of the empire, including Britain.
The 1930 Land Apportionment Act restricted black land ownership to certain segments of the country, setting aside large areas solely for the purchase of the white minority. This act, which led to rapidly rising inequality, became the subject of frequent calls for subsequent land reform. In 1953, in the face of African opposition, Britain consolidated the two Rhodesias with Nyasaland (Malawi) in the ill-fated Central African Federation, which Southern Rhodesia essentially dominated. Growing African nationalism and general dissent, particularly in Nyasaland, persuaded Britain to dissolve the union in 1963, forming three separate divisions. While multiracial democracy was finally introduced to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Southern Rhodesians of European ancestry continued to enjoy minority rule.
Following Zambian independence (effective from October 1964), Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front government in Salisbury dropped the designation "Southern" in 1964 (once Northern Rhodesia had changed its name to Zambia, having the word Southern before the name Rhodesia became unnecessary and the country simply became known as Rhodesia afterwards). Intent on effectively repudiating the recently adopted British policy of "no independence before majority rule", Smith issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965. This marked the first such course taken by a rebel British colony since the U.S. declaration of 1776, which Smith and others indeed claimed provided a suitable precedent to their own actions.
The United Kingdom deemed the Rhodesian declaration an act of rebellion but did not re-establish control by force. The British government petitioned the United Nations for sanctions against Rhodesia pending unsuccessful talks with Smith's administration in 1966 and 1968. In December 1966, the organisation complied, imposing the first mandatory trade embargo on an autonomous state. These sanctions were expanded again in 1968.
A civil war ensued when Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), supported actively by communist powers and neighbouring African nations, initiated guerrilla operations against Rhodesia's predominantly white government. ZAPU was supported by the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact and associated nations such as Cuba, and adopted a Marxist–Leninist ideology; ZANU meanwhile aligned itself with Maoism and the bloc headed by the People's Republic of China. Smith declared Rhodesia a republic in 1970, following the results of a referendum the previous year, but this went unrecognised internationally. Meanwhile, Rhodesia's internal conflict intensified, eventually forcing him to open negotiations with the militant communists.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Zimbabwe”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.