Zambia

A copper economy that gambled on principle and paid for it for twenty years. Zambia became independent on 24 October 1964 from Northern Rhodesia, with Kenneth Kaunda leading a country whose wealth came almost entirely from the Copperbelt and whose transport routes ran south through white-ruled Rhodesia and South Africa. When Ian Smith declared Rhodesian independence in 1965, Kaunda supported sanctions and hosted liberation movements - ZAPU, the ANC, SWAPO and others - which meant Rhodesian and South African forces raided Zambian territory repeatedly, and the border closure cut the country's copper exports off from the sea. The response was the TAZARA railway to Dar es Salaam, built between 1970 and 1975 by China, the largest Chinese aid project in Africa at the time and the beginning of a relationship that has since become central. The copper price collapsed in the mid-1970s and did not recover for a generation, leaving Zambia among the most indebted countries per head in the world. Kaunda's one-party state ended peacefully in 1991 when he lost an election and left office. Victoria Falls lies on the southern border. Lusaka is the capital. Copper is again the dominant export. Lusaka replaced Livingstone as the capital in 1935. The Kariba dam on the Zambezi supplies most of the country's power. Zambia has among the highest urbanisation rates in the region. Its name comes from the river. Kaunda died in 2021 and was mourned across southern Africa. The country borders eight others, more than any state in Africa except the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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