Zambia

Full name of country: Republic of Zambia

Region: Africa

Official language: English

Population: 20,799,116 (2024 est.)

Nationality: Zambian(s) (noun), Zambian (adjective)

Land area: 743,398 sq km (287,027 sq miles)

Water area: 9,220 sq km (3,560 sq miles)

Capital: Lusaka

National anthem: "Lumbanyeni Zambia" (Stand and Sing of Zambia, Proud and Free), by Multiple/Enoch Makayi Sontonga

National holiday: Independence Day, October 24 (1964)

Population growth: 2.83% (2024 est.)

Time zone: UTC +2

Flag: The Zambian flag consists of a green flag with a block of three vertical bands of red, black, and orange (arranged left to right) on the outer edge, above which sits an orange eagle in flight, symbolizing freedom.

Motto: “One Zambia, One Nation”

Independence: October 24, 1964 (from the UK)

Government type: presidential republic

Suffrage: universal for those eighteen years of age and older

Legal system: based on a mixture of English common law and customary law

The Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country in the center of southern Africa, located just south of the equator. Home to more than seventy different tribal groups, the country is challenged by a postcolonial legacy of poverty, debt, and corruption. In addition, Zambia had the world’s eighth-highest rate of adult HIV/AIDS prevalence as of 2018.

Since the mid-1990s, the Zambian government has been working with international charitable organizations, the World Bank, and foreign governments to improve education, health care, and the national economy.

People and Culture

Population: Zambia is home to members of about thirty-five African ethnic groups, comprising about 99 percent of the population (the remaining 1 percent are generally of European extraction) and speaking more than seventy languages or dialects. The most populous of these groups are the Bemba people, who predominate in the north and central areas of the country. In the south and east, the Tonga and Chewa peoples are most prevalent, as are the Tonga and Nyanja (Chewa) languages, while the Lozi people can be found predominantly in the west. Other languages spoken in Zambia include the Nsenga, Tumbuka, and Kaonde languages. All of the major languages spoken in Zambia are Bantu languages, with the Bemba language being the most common. Although English is Zambia's only official language, it is the first language of just 1.7 percent of the population (2010 estimate).

Most Zambians are Protestants, comprising 75.3 percent of the population. Another 20.2 percent are Roman Catholic. A small percentage are adherents of other religions, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and the Baha'i faith. Approximately 1.8 percent do not adhere to any religion (2010 estimates).

An estimated 60 percent of Zambians lived below the poverty line in 2022. Living conditions in most of Zambia reflect the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and other diseases. The adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rate was 11.1 percent in 2020.

Zambia’s birth rate of 34.1 births per 1,000 people and death rate of 5.9 deaths per 1,000 people created a population growth rate of 2.83 percent as of 2024.

Indigenous People: Anthropologists believe that there have been people living in the Lusaka area of Zambia since the early emergence of Homo sapiens at least one hundred thousand years ago. Since that time, the area has witnessed the settlement and migration of early Swahili-Arab slave traders from the coast, Bantu-speaking peoples from neighboring regions, and European traders beginning in the eighteenth century.

Most of Zambia’s current ethnic makeup derives from Bantu speakers who arrived in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. In the nineteenth century, these groups were joined by refugees from the Zulu wars to the south, who in some cases forcibly relocated them.

Education: Education in Zambia consists of seven years of primary school, two years of lower secondary, and three years of upper secondary. Primary school, which starts at age seven, is free and ostensibly compulsory, although enforcement has been lax. Students must pass national competitive examinations at the end of the seventh, ninth, and twelfth grades in order to progress to the next level of education.

Zambia is home to several public universities, including: the University of Zambia, in Lusaka; Copperbelt University, in Kitwe; Mulungushi University, in Kabwe; Kwame Nkrumah University, also in Kabwe; Mukuba University, in Kitwe; and Chalimbana University, in Lusaka. The latter three are former teacher training colleges that now offer four-year degrees, and in some cases graduate degrees.

In 2017, the net attendance rate in primary school was 84.06 percent: 85.77 percent for girls and 82.38 percent for boys. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics, however, in 2012, the primary school survival rate (i.e., students who remained until the final year of compulsory schooling) was only 53.1 percent, and the net attendance rate for secondary school was just 38.2 percent for boys and 35.6 percent for girls. The adult literacy rate among Zambians was estimated at 90.6 percent for men and 83.1 percent for women in 2018.

Zambia’s education system is strained by the country’s demographics. A high mortality rate and a high fertility rate have left Zambia with a very young population. The median age in the country was 18.4 years as of 2024.

Health Care: Zambia’s health care system has undergone significant changes since 1963. After gaining its independence from Britain, Zambia experienced an economic boom that allowed the government to provide free basic health care to its citizens. Following a long period of recession in the late 1970s and 1980s and the increase of HIV/AIDS in the region, Zambia’s health system became one of the most understaffed and overstretched systems in the world.

Since the early 1990s Zambia’s government has been working with international charitable organizations and the World Bank to redesign the health care system. At present, Zambia’s health centers and district hospitals work under district supervision with grants provided by the state or by charitable organizations. These health centers and local hospitals provide basic health care needs. Reform measures included providing and funding more training for health professionals as well as putting greater resources into recruitment; the goal remained universal, equitable coverage.

Diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, bacterial diarrhea, typhoid, hepatitis A, and schistosomiasis (a waterborne disease) are common in certain areas of the country. In 2024, the infant mortality rate stood at 35.6 deaths per 1,000 live births, and life expectancy at birth was 65.2 years for men and 68.7 years for women. Zambia ranked 153 out of 193 countries and territories on the 2022 United Nations Human Development Index, which measures quality-of-life indicators.

Food: The most common dish in Zambian cuisine is called nshima. Made by grinding sorghum or maize and combining it with water to produce a thick paste, nshima appears at mealtimes in a communal eating dish. Diners scoop up a ball of the paste with their right hands and dip it into meat or vegetable dishes that are served on the side. At breakfast time, nshima is slightly sweetened with milk and sugar.

Near the country’s rivers and lakes, freshwater fish is also a dietary staple. Kapenta, a sardine-like small fish, is sold dried in baskets across the country.

Other common ingredients in Zambian dishes include millet, sweet potatoes, peanuts, onions, tomatoes, beans and bean leaves, okra, cow peas, pumpkins, and cassava.

Arts & Entertainment: Traditional Zambian cultures are known for rhythmic, drum-based music and dancing. Thumb pianos, whistles, and African drums form the basics of this musical style, and vary widely between regions. Among the Bemba, the imangu is a popular friction drum. The Lozi are famous for massive maoma drums, and the Luvale use drum chimes called kachacha. Mambwe women play an instrument called a vingwengwe, created when the women spin upside-down stools on top of four metal pots placed in a row to create a harmonic resonance.

Dance is fundamental to life in Zambia. Historical events, spiritual beliefs, and social morays are encoded into group dances. Each year, a member of the Nyau, a Chewa secret society, is chosen as the country’s best dancer, the Vimbuza. The Congolese rumba has become one of the most popular dances for entertainment.

Soccer has become Zambia’s most popular sport, and most of the country’s towns and villages sponsor a soccer team for local and national competition. However, soccer is usually limited to boys, with girls playing a game called netball that is closely related to basketball. Boxing is also popular in Zambia, along with rugby, badminton, tennis, and golf. In the country’s many lake areas, fishing is a family pastime and the basis for national competitions. Isolo, a traditional African board game, is common in small villages and large towns throughout Zambia.

Holidays: Zambia officially recognizes many of the holidays familiar in Western countries: Good Friday, Easter, Easter Monday, Christmas, and New Year’s Day on January 1. The country also celebrates Youth Day (March 12), Labor Day (May 1), Africa Day (May 25), Heroes Day and Unity Day (first week in July), Farmer’s Day (first week in August), and Independence Day (October 24).

Zambians also celebrate a number of regional festivals. Near the town of Mongu in western Zambia, Lozi people ferry their chief and his family across the Zambezi River in war canoes from a palace in Lealui to one in Limulungathe. Called Kuomboka, the festival surrounding the event marks the end of the rainy season.

The Ngoni people celebrate N’Cwala in the town of Mutenguleni in late February. The festival is accompanied by music, dancing, and feasting all to commemorate the arrival of the Ngoni in Zambia in 1835.

Environment and Geography

Topography: Located in southern Central Africa, Zambia borders the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola. Most of the country sits on a plateau between 1,060 and 1,363 meters (3,478 and 4,472 feet) above sea level. Small granite hills dot the plateau.

Eastern Zambia rises to over 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) above sea level on the Nyika Plateau. The Zambezi River cuts across the high plateau, fed by the Kafue and Luangwe rivers. Along the riverbeds, large valleys and waterfalls mold the surface of the plateau.

In the south, Victoria Falls dominates the border with Zimbabwe at the town of Livingstone. Kalambo Falls spills into Lake Tanganyika in the north near Congo and Tanzania. The Luangwe River Valley actually forms part of the Great African Rift Valley, a massive fault system extending from southwest Asia across east Africa.

At 2,148 meters (7,047 feet), Mwanda Peak is said to be the highest point of elevation in Zambia, although some claim the terrain reaches 2,301 meters (7,549 feet) somewhere in the Mafinga Hills. The country’s lowest point is approximately 329 meters (1,079 feet) in the Zambezi River bed.

Natural Resources: Zambia’s natural resources include copper, cobalt, zinc, lead, coal, emeralds, gold, silver, uranium, and more recently, hydropower. After decades of decline due in part to falling prices on the international market, the country’s copper industry has rebounded. The industry was privatized in 2002, and copper exports have since become a major part of the economy.

Plants & Animals: Zambia’s wildlife parks are internationally renowned for their rare and impressive animal and plant species. Baobab trees, sometimes thousands of years old, grow in the river valleys.

Lions, elephants, hippopotamuses, water buffalo, giraffes, baboons, warthogs, and mongooses thrive in Zambia’s moist savanna woodlands and the bushveld covers of the dry southwest. Zambia has twenty national parks and even more game reserves to help preserve its incredible array of wildlife.

Zambia is also famous among birdwatchers. Hundreds of bird species can be spotted in the wetlands, woodlands, and dry lowlands of the country.

Climate: Zambia lies only 10 to 18 degrees latitude south of the equator. However, the country’s altitude keeps the climate generally temperate and fairly dry. Throughout most of the country, temperatures average 20–32 degrees Celsius (68–90 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer and 10–26 degrees Celsius (50–79 degrees Fahrenheit) in the winter. Winter falls between May and August and tends to be dry. Summertime temperatures reach their peak between September and November.

Average rainfall is about 950 millimeters (37 inches) during the rainy season, from November to April in most of the country. The Eastern highlands receive heavy rainfall year round.

In the Zambezi and Luangwe River valleys, the weather tends to be more extreme, and temperatures can rise toward 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in October at the peak of summer. Zambia is prone to occasional droughts.

Economy

In 2023, Zambia’s gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated at US$76.129 billion, or US$3,700 per capita.

Zambia was one of thirty-nine countries to qualify for debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative, a program initiated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in 1996, later supplemented by the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). By 2018, thirty-six of those countries, including Zambia, had qualified to receive full debt relief under the initiatives.

Industry: Zambia’s twentieth-century economy was built on copper mining, originally operated by the colonial government. The industry was privatized in 2002, to the benefit of the Zambian economy, although falling copper prices, currency depreciation, and reduced power generation resulted in a slowdown in economic growth in 2015–17. Emerald mining is also important to the Zambian economy. Several smaller industries have appeared in recent decades, including processing, construction, and the production of foodstuffs, beverages, chemicals, textiles, fertilizer, and horticulture.

Agriculture: Zambia’s temperate climate and fertile soils provide good conditions for agricultural production, although the increase in agricultural activities in recent decades has meant a decline in the country’s valuable woodlands.

Small farmers and large-scale farms typically produce corn, sorghum, rice, peanuts, sunflower seed, vegetables, flowers, tobacco, cotton, sugarcane, coffee and cassava. Farmers also raise cattle, goats, pigs, and poultry for the production of meat, milk, eggs, and hides.

Tourism: Tourism has had little impact in Zambia, due in part to the political policies and economic collapse of the 1970s and 1980s in the country. Travel and tourism accounted for 4.5 percent of GDP in 2022. Guided tours in Zambia generally focus on Victoria Falls, the Zambezi River, and the wealth of wildlife that still inhabits Zambia’s plains and forests.

Government

Introduced to the European empires by eighteenth-century Portuguese explorers, Zambia developed into a colonial center of mining under the British South Africa Company in the last years of the nineteenth century. Under the British, the country became known as Northern Rhodesia, and most of its resources were used to support the colonial administration in Southern Rhodesia (now Malawi). Northern Rhodesia did not gain its independence until 1964, when it took the name Zambia.

Since 1964, the young African republic has battled government corruption and failed coups. The first multiparty election took place in 2001.

Zambia’s president serves as both chief of state and head of government. The president is elected by popular vote to a maximum of two five-year terms. Zambia’s unicameral National Assembly has 167 members, of which 156 are elected by popular vote and up to 9 are appointed by the president. All members serve five-year terms.

Zambia’s highest courts are the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court began operation in June 2016 as part of constitutional reforms. Supreme Court justices and Constitutional Court judges are appointed by the president on the advice of the Judicial Service Commission and are confirmed by the National Assembly. Lower courts include the Court of Appeal, the High Court, and the Industrial Relations Court.

Interesting Facts

• Zambia took its name from the Zambezi River. Its name under British colonization, Southern Rhodesia, was taken from English businessman Cecil Rhodes.
• Victoria Falls, called Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) by locals, is said to be longest curtain of water in the world at 1,708 meters (5,604 feet) high.
• The fossil skull known as the Broken Hill Man, an important specimen in the study of hominid ancestors of modern humans, was found in Zambia.

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