ZAMBIA IS A LARGE, LANDLOCKED NATION IN SOUTH-CENTRAL AFRICA.
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CLIMATE |
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Zambia’s height above sea level means that the weather is never extremely hot, except in the river valleys. The rainy season lasts from November to April, when there can often be violent storms.
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Early Settlements
Zambia (ZAM-bee-uh) has a long history of human settlement, going back to between about 40,000 and 20,000 B.C.E. Throughout the thousands of years of the Stone Age, small, family-sized groups of people roamed the country, hunting animals, collecting berries and grains, and digging for roots. Between about 100 and 300 C.E., small groups of ironworking farmers began moving into the area from the north. They are believed to have spoken early forms of the Bantu (BAN-too) family of languages. They traded and intermarried with the hunters and gradually absorbed them into their village settlements.
By about 1000 the Bantu-speaking farmers had spread their villages throughout Zambia, and trade in iron, copper, salt, and food began to develop between neighbors. By the 1300s regular markets were held at Ingombe Ilede (ehn-GOEM-bae ih-LAE-dee), on the north bank of the Zambezi (zam-BEE-zee) River. Zambian and Zimbabwean copper and gold were exchanged for glass beads and cotton cloth from the eastern African coast.
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FACTS AND FIGURES |
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Official name: Republic of Zambia Status: Independent state Capital: Lusaka Major towns: Kitwe, Ndola Area: 290,585 square miles (752,615 square kilometers) Population: 11,500,000 Population density: 40 per square mile (15 per square kilometer) Peoples: 36 percent Bemba; 19 percent Tonga; 15 percent Ngoni; 8 percent Mambwe; 7 percent Lozi; more than 60 other groups Official language: English Currency: Kwacha National days: Heroes Day/Unity Day (first Monday and Tuesday in July); Independence Day (October 24) Country’s name: The name Zambia comes from the Zambezi River, which forms the country’s southern boundary.
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By the 1600s and 1700s the ancestors of many of the distinctive peoples of modern-day Zambia had settled in the region: the Luyana (later Lozi) of the upper Zambezi floodplain; the Tonga of the Toka plateau; the Bisa and Chewa in the east; and the Bemba in the north.
In about 1740 a new power emerged in the Luapula (loo-ah-POO-lah) River Valley, the Kazembe Lunda (kah-ZEHM-bee LOON-dah) kingdom. By 1800 it had become a major center of long-distance trade, selling ivory, iron, salt, and copper as far south as the Zambezi. The Bisa people acted as middlemen in the trade, while the Bemba preyed on the Kazembe Lunda trading caravans, raiding them and bringing the loot northward to sell in Tanzania.
