Zimbabwe is a landlocked country in southern Africa, a high plateau land between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It takes its name from Great Zimbabwe, the impressive stone city of a medieval African civilisation, and shares with neighbouring Zambia the spectacular Victoria Falls. Once a prosperous, agriculture-rich country known as the breadbasket of the region, it has lived through colonial white-minority rule, a war of liberation, and a turbulent recent history.
In the medieval period a Shona civilisation built Great Zimbabwe, a city of remarkable dry-stone walls that traded gold and ivory across the Indian Ocean and gave the modern country its name. Later the Ndebele kingdom rose in the southwest. In the late nineteenth century the territory was colonised by the British, becoming the settler colony of Rhodesia under white-minority rule. After a long liberation war, the country gained independence as Zimbabwe in 1980 under Robert Mugabe, who would rule for nearly four decades.
Zimbabwe sits on a high central plateau, the highveld, which gives the tropical country a temperate climate and good farmland, falling away to lower, hotter ground along its river borders. The Zambezi River marks the northern frontier and plunges over the magnificent Victoria Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the world, shared with Zambia. The country also holds great national parks rich in wildlife, including large populations of elephants.
The flag of Zimbabwe has seven horizontal stripes of green, yellow, red, and black, with a white triangle at the hoist bearing a red star and the Zimbabwe Bird. The stripes stand for the land and agriculture, mineral wealth, the blood of the liberation struggle, and the African people. The red star represents the nation's aspirations, while the Zimbabwe Bird, a soapstone carving found at Great Zimbabwe, is the national emblem linking the country to its ancient heritage.
The majority of Zimbabweans are Christians, spread across many denominations, including large independent African churches that blend Christian worship with local custom. Traditional African beliefs, honouring ancestors and spirits, remain deeply influential and are often held alongside Christianity, with spirit mediums having played a notable role even in the liberation struggle. This blending of Christian and traditional belief is a characteristic feature of the country's spiritual life.
Zimbabwean cuisine centres on sadza, a thick porridge made from white maize meal that is the staple of nearly every meal, eaten with relishes of vegetables, beans, or meat. Stewed and grilled meat is enjoyed where it can be afforded, and leafy greens and groundnuts feature widely. A distinctive local delicacy is mopane worms, the dried caterpillars of the mopane moth, a traditional and protein-rich food in parts of the region.
Agriculture has always been central to Zimbabwe, whose fertile highveld once made it a major regional food producer and exporter, earning it the title of the breadbasket of southern Africa. Maize is the staple food crop, and tobacco is a leading export, alongside cotton, sugar, and horticulture. A controversial and often violent programme of land redistribution beginning around 2000 disrupted large-scale commercial farming and contributed to severe economic difficulties.
Great Zimbabwe stands as one of Africa's most important precolonial achievements, long denied its true origins by colonial authorities reluctant to credit an African civilisation. The era of white-minority Rhodesian rule, the liberation war, and independence in 1980 define the country's modern history. The decades that followed brought a catastrophic economic collapse, including a period of staggering hyperinflation, before the long-ruling Robert Mugabe was finally removed from power in 2017.
Zimbabwe has a population of around 16 million people, the great majority belonging to the Shona, with a significant Ndebele minority in the southwest, and English, Shona, and Ndebele among its official languages. The population is relatively well educated, but decades of economic hardship have driven large numbers of Zimbabweans to live and work abroad, especially in neighbouring South Africa. Most people live in the rural highveld and in cities such as the capital, Harare.
