Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the northeast, Malawi to the east, Mozambique to the southeast, Zimbabwe and Botswana to the south, Namibia to the southwest, and Angola to the west. The capital city of Zambia is Lusaka, located in the south-central part of Zambia. The nation's population of around 20.1 million (2023) is concentrated mainly around Lusaka in the south and the Copperbelt Province to the north, the core economic hubs of the country.
The history of Zambia experienced many stages from colonization to independence from Britain on October 24, 1964. Northern Rhodesia became a British sphere of influence in the present-day region of Zambia in 1888, and was officially proclaimed a British protectorate in 1924. After many years of suggested mergers, Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland were merged into the British Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
Kaonde (kiiKaonde) is a Bantu language spoken primarily in Zambia but also in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kaonde and its dialects are spoken and understood by perhaps 350,000 people or more. It is estimated that approximately 2.3% of Zambians are native Kaonde speakers. Kaonde speakers overwhelmingly live in the Northwestern and parts of Central regions of Zambia.
Lunda, also known as Chilunda, is a Bantu language spoken in Zambia, Angola and, to a lesser extent, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Lunda and its dialects are spoken and understood by perhaps 4.6% of Zambians, and the language is used mainly in the Northwestern province of Zambia. The majority of the Lunda can be found in DRC, especially Katanga Province, as well as in Angola. A small number of Lunda dialects are represented in Namibia.
Northern Province is one of Zambia's ten provinces. It covers approximately one sixth of Zambia in land area. The provincial capital is Kasama. The province is made up of 12 districts, namely Kasama District, Chilubi District, Kaputa District, Luwingu District, Mbala District, Mporokoso District, Mpulungu District, Mungwi District, Nsama District, Lupososhi District, Lunte District and Senga Hill District. Currently, only Kasama and Mbala have attained municipal council status, while the rest are still district councils. It is widely considered to be the heartland of the Bemba, one of the largest tribes in Zambia.
The Bemba belong to a large group of Bantu peoples mainly in the Northern, Luapula, Muchinga, and the northern Central Province of Zambia. The Bemba entered modern-day Zambia by crossing the Luapula River. As a group came to Zambia by 1740 from Kola. A few other ethnic groups in the Northern and Luapula of Zambia speak languages that are similar to Bemba but do not share a similar origin. The Bemba people are not indigenous to the Copperbelt Province, having reached there only in the 1930s due to employment opportunities in copper mining.
Zambia has several major indigenous languages, all members of the Bantu family, as well as Khwedam, Zambian Sign Language, several immigrant languages and the pidgins Settla and Fanagalo. English is the official language and the major language of business and education.
The Wanda are a Bantu ethno-linguistic group based in Mbeya Region and Sumbawanga District of southern Rukwa Region of Tanzania. The Wanda population was estimated to be 24,000 in 1987, having increased from 5,745 in 1931, 7,677 in 1948, and 9,477 in 1957.
Mwanga, or Namwanga (Nyamwanga), is a Bantu language spoken by the Mwanga people in the Northern Province of Zambia and in Mbeya Region, Tanzania. The 2010 Zambian census found 140,000 speakers. The current number in Tanzania is unknown; Ethnologue cites a figure from 1987 of 87,000.
Namwanga or Nyamwanga are a Bantu ethnic group native to Momba District in Songwe Region of Tanzania, northeastern Zambia,and Northern Malawi. They speak Nyamwanga or Chinamwanga. In 1993 the Mwanga population was estimated to number 256,000, with 169,000 living in Zambia and 87,000 in Tanzania. At this point, the number of Namwanga people in Malawi is not yet known.
The Mambwe are an ethnic and linguistic group from Kalambo District of Rukwa Region, Tanzania and northeastern Zambia. Like the Namwanga and other regional ethnic tribes, the Mambwe are said to have migrated from North East Africa. In 1987 the Mambwe population in Tanzania was estimated to number 63,000. The number of Mambwe in Zambia has not been independently estimated, though the combined number of Mambwe and Lungu in Zambia was estimated to be 262,800 in 1993. The mambwe people of Zambia are known to be great businessmen owing to their interaction to their close cousins; the Namwanga, Swahili and Arabs traders. They also distinguish the last names for males and females, like the Namwanga people, by applying prefixes "Si" and "Na" to be the first two letters of the last name e.g. Simwinga (Male) Namwinga (Female), Simpokolwe (Male) Nampokolwe (Female) Sikazwe (Male) & Nakazwe, Silupya (Male) & Nalupya (Female), Sinyangwe (Male) & Nanyangwe (Female), Sikasula (Male) & Nakasula (Female), Sinkamba (Male) & Nankamba (Female), Simusokwe (Male) & Namusokwe (Female), Sikasote (Male) & Nakasote (Female),Simakala (Male) & Namakala Simfukwe (Male) & Namfukwe (Female), Sinkala (Male) & Nankala (Nankala), Simbela (Male) & Nambela (Female), Sichilima (Male) Nachilima (Female) Simpungwe & nampungwe,simbeya(male) & nambeya(female) etc. A meal of beans ("choli") and okra ("kumbi") are a mambwe staple and delicacy.
The Mambwe and Lungu peoples living at the southern end of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania and Zambia speak a common language with minor dialectical differences. Perhaps half of the Fipa people to their north speak it as a native language. When spoken by the Fipa, it is called "Fipa-Mambwe"; this is also the term for the branch of Bantu languages which includes Fipa and Mambwe-Lungu.
Digo (Chidigo) is a Bantu language spoken primarily along the East African coast between Mombasa and Tanga by the Digo people of Kenya and Tanzania. The ethnic Digo population has been estimated at around 360,000, the majority of whom are presumably speakers of the language. All adult speakers of Digo are bilingual in Swahili, East Africa's lingua franca. The two languages are closely related, and Digo also has much vocabulary borrowed from neighbouring Swahili dialects.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Zambia:
Zambia, officially known as the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west. The capital city is Lusaka, located in the southeast of the country. The population is concentrated mainly around the capital and the Copperbelt to the northwest.
Fipa is a Bantu language of Tanzania. It is spoken by the Fipa people, who live on the Ufipa plateau in the Rukwa Region of South West Tanzania between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Rukwa. The ethnic group of the Fipa people is larger than the group of Fipa language speakers. On the Tanzanian side, people who speak Mambwe-Lungu may identify as Fipa and consider their language to be a dialect of Fipa. Lungu and Mambwe are also spoken in Zambia where they are considered languages and their speakers are considered to be ethnic groups in their own right, although linguists consider Lungu and Mambwe to be dialects of a single language. There are three dialects: Milanzi, Kwa (Ichikwa) and Nkansi.
The term Congo Pygmies refers to "forest people" who have, or recently had, a hunter-gatherer economy and a simple, non-hierarchical societal structure based on bands, are of short stature, have a deep cultural and religious affinity with the Congo forest and live in a generally subservient relationship with agricultural "patrons", with which they trade forest products such as meat and honey for agricultural and iron products.
The Bantu peoples, or Bantu, are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. They are native to 24 countries spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Southern Africa. There are several hundred Bantu languages. Depending on the definition of "language" or "dialect", it is estimated that there are between 440 and 680 distinct languages. The total number of speakers is in the hundreds of millions, ranging at roughly 350 million in the mid-2010s. About 60 million speakers (2015), divided into some 200 ethnic or tribal groups, are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone.
The people who currently identify themselves as Basimba or BaShimba for many and Musimba or MuShimba for singular are a Bantu speaking community in Uganda. Before the 13th century they maintained a shared identity as Basimba, also defined in Swahili as "big lion," associated with either these people or the place which they came from.
