#citiesseries

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the zambian cities series: ndola part one — history and identity

the oldest colonial town: ndola was founded in 1904 by john edward "chiripula" stephenson, just six months after livingstone — the second oldest colonial-era town in zambia. established on the site of a former arab trading post and slave market. the slave tree — a mupapa tree under which swahili slave traders held their councils — still stands in central ndola, marked by a plaque. the name derives from the ndola river, which drains into the kafubu river. the lamba people under senior chief chiwala were the area's original inhabitants. the city lies just 10km from the DRC border.

the railway and the rise: the rhodesia railways main line reached ndola in 1907 — and ndola became the distribution centre of the copperbelt and northern zambia. the freight line extended into the DRC, ndola to lubumbashi via sakania. before the road network of the 1930s, the route from ndola to the luapula river was the principal trade route for the entire northern province.

the industrial peak: by the mid-twentieth century, ndola was the largest industrial centre in zambia. copper and precious metals brought from nkana, nchanga, mufulira, and chingola for processing at the ndola copper refinery and precious metals refinery. the indeni oil refinery fed by the TAZAMA pipeline from dar es salaam. land rover vehicle assembly, dunlop tyre manufacture, johnson & johnson, colgate-palmolive, unilever — all with ndola operations.

the night of 17-18 september 1961: dag hammarskjöld — second secretary-general of the united nations — was travelling to ndola to negotiate a ceasefire with moïse tshombe, leader of secessionist katanga province. shortly after midnight, his chartered DC-6B — the albertina — crashed on approach to ndola airport. all sixteen people on board were killed.

three official inquiries (1961-62) failed to reach a conclusive finding. the rhodesian commission dismissed black african eyewitness testimony and concluded pilot error. the UN commission reached an open verdict, not ruling out sabotage. susan williams' 2011 book who killed hammarskjöld? prompted the hammarskjöld commission, which concluded in 2013 that there was "persuasive evidence that the aircraft was subjected to some form of attack or threat." the UN's most recent 2024 report finds it remains "plausible that an external attack or threat was a cause" — while "specific and crucial information continues to be withheld by a handful of member states."

hammarskjöld never reached ndola alive. the dag hammarskjöld crash site memorial marks where he died. the investigation continues.

the zambian cities series continues. 🇿🇲🏙

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the zambian cities series: chipata — the gateway at the edge

the name and the renaming: the city was known for its entire colonial existence as fort jameson — named after leander starr jameson, whose most famous act was the botched 1895 jameson raid. at independence in 1964, fort jameson became chipata — from the chewa word "chimpata," meaning "large space," a reference to the town's situation in a shallow valley between hills.

the colonial origins: fort jameson was established in 1899 and served as the administrative capital of north-eastern rhodesia from 1901 until 1911. this makes chipata, alongside livingstone, one of only two cities in zambia that can claim to have been a capital.

the geography of the crossing: chipata sits approximately 570km east of lusaka — and approximately 130km from lilongwe, malawi's capital. closer to malawi's capital than to the nearest major zambian city. the mwami border post, 20km east, is one of zambia's busiest land border crossings.

the railway connection: in august 2011, after three decades of planning, the rail link connecting chipata to mchinji in malawi opened — making chipata the zambian railhead for the nacala corridor, running through malawi to the deep-water port at nacala in mozambique. chipata and the lobito corridor together give zambia access, in principle, to both the atlantic ocean and the indian ocean by rail.

the agricultural economy: eastern province accounts for approximately 19-20% of zambia's total agricultural production. chipata is its administrative hub and primary market. the chipata central market — more than 900 stalls — is the daily commercial centre for one of zambia's most agriculturally productive regions.

the nc'wala ceremony: held at mutenguleni village on the outskirts of chipata each february — a first fruits ceremony of the ngoni people, drawing tens of thousands of attendees. at nc'wala time, chipata is one of the most culturally alive cities in the country.

the cycling city: called the "amsterdam of zambia" — the bicycle is the dominant mode of daily transport, more than any other major zambian city. not a hobby. a working vehicle.

chipata is the series' first city defined not by mining but by its position at the edge of one country and the beginning of another. growing because trade crosses borders. mattering because the land around it feeds people.

the zambian cities series continues. 🇿🇲🏙

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the zambian cities series: kitwe — the copperbelt's beating heart

the name: from the nkonde word "itwi" — meaning "place where the soil is black," a reference to the rich copper ore in the area. the alternative name kitwe-nkana — the city and the mine so intertwined that a hyphen is the most honest description of how they came to be.

the founding: kitwe was founded in 1936, not as a mine site — the mine was at nkana, slightly to its west — but as the supply town a mine economy generates around its edges. the rhodesia railways main line reached the town in 1937. when the railway arrived, kitwe's future as a commercial hub was settled.

the mine and the city: nkana mine township and kitwe were formally integrated in 1961. by then, the copperbelt's urban workers — organised, literate, increasingly politically conscious — were among the most important constituencies in the drive toward independence in 1964. kitwe's workforce was not merely a passive economic actor. it was a political force.

the boom years and the collapse: by the 1980s, kitwe's population had grown from 9,000 people in the 1950s to more than 220,000 — a twenty-fold increase in three decades. then the 1973 global copper price collapse. the ZCCM era left deferred maintenance, reduced formal employment, and an informal economy that grew to fill the gap.

the privatisation and recovery: not linear. the mine-adjacent townships lost company-provided services. the transition was difficult. but the underlying economic logic of kitwe reasserted itself as prices recovered and new mine investment began.

kitwe today: population 661,907 (2022 census), metro area approximately 824,000 in 2025. copperbelt university — more than 11,000 students spanning mining engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, computer science, and business.

the economic ecology beyond the mines: the valve and instrumentation supply businesses that serve nkana and nchanga. the engineering contractors maintaining underground ventilation systems. the industrial equipment suppliers, chemical distributors, technical service companies. kitwe is that supply chain's physical home.

the new investment cycle: kobold metals' mingomba in the western forelands to kitwe's northwest. IRH's 366% KCM production surge at chingola — kitwe's neighbour. mopani's 40% output increase at the nkana smelter processing copper since the 1930s.

kitwe is the industrial heart of a country whose copper has shaped the global economy for a century — and whose copper will shape the global clean energy transition for decades to come.

the zambian cities series continues. 🇿🇲🏙

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the zambian cities series: lusaka — the city that became a country

the unlikely capital: when the colonial administration moved its headquarters to lusaka from livingstone in 1935, lusaka was a small railway settlement — a node on the line connecting the copperbelt to bulawayo, notable primarily as a collection point for central province agricultural produce. the decision was strategic: lusaka was more central to the territory's geography and more practically connected to the copperbelt.

the settlement's origins: the earliest evidence of settlement in the area dates to the 6th century AD. the lenje and soli peoples inhabited the area from the 17th or 18th century. the name lusaka derives from a lenje headman, lusaka, after whom the area's borehole — and then the settlement that grew around it — was named.

building a capital: independence brought a large-scale building programme: government ministries, the university of zambia, a new international airport. cairo road's art deco facades remain the city's most distinctive architectural gesture. but independence also brought what no building programme could absorb: large-scale rural-to-urban migration. kanyama, george, matero, ng'ombe — unplanned communities grew on the city's fringes. by the 2000s, 60-70% of lusaka's population was living in compounds — permanent, intergenerational, largely self-built communities that are the actual housing system for the majority of the capital's residents.

the city of contrasts: kabulonga, ibex hill, woodlands — leafy northern suburbs with diplomatic residences. manda hill and levy junction malls. kenneth kaunda international airport connecting to johannesburg, nairobi, london. and: kanyama, where a million people manage daily life without piped water. george, where the market generates economic activity formal GDP statistics don't fully capture.

the transformation story: a city designed for 100,000 now holds more than 3.4 million, growing at ~4.4% per year. but lusaka's story is not only a story of deficits. the entrepreneurial density of its compounds is a genuine economic asset formal statistics consistently undercount.

lusaka is zambia in miniature: its paradoxes, its potential, its progress, and its unfinished business — all concentrated in one fast-growing city on a limestone plateau 1,279 metres above the sea.

the zambian cities series continues. 🇿🇲🏙

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the zambian cities series: livingstone — the city that was zambia before zambia existed

the beginning: before zambia was zambia, there was a crossing point on the zambezi. the old drift — a few kilometres above the falls — was where people crossed: first by dugout canoe, then by iron boat pulled by eight lozi paddlers, then by steel-cabled barge. by around 1897, a small british colonial outpost had grown up there — the first municipality in what would become zambia. mosquitoes ended that experiment. malaria killed enough settlers that the europeans moved to higher ground, and as that settlement grew into a town it took a name: livingstone.

the explorer: david livingstone reached the falls on 16 november 1855 — the first european to see mosi-oa-tunya from the zambian bank, shown there by local chiefs. what he did was document them for a european audience. the victoria falls railway bridge, completed in 1905, placed livingstone at the crossing point of one of colonial africa's most ambitious infrastructure projects.

the capital years (1907-1935): livingstone was the capital of northern rhodesia. of all the towns in northern rhodesia, colonial livingstone took on the most markedly british character — edwardian buildings lining the main street, deep racial segregation. in 1935, the capital moved to lusaka — closer to the copperbelt's economic heartland. but livingstone did not collapse. timber, hides, tobacco, and cotton continued. and the tourist trade became the city's new identity.

the independence era: zimbabwe's post-independence instability from the late 1990s onward was, paradoxically, good for livingstone — visitors who might have chosen zimbabwe's side of the falls began choosing zambia's. a genuine revival followed: new lodges along the zambezi, bungee jumping from the victoria falls bridge, white-water rafting, helicopter and microlight operators.

livingstone today: 177,393 people (2022 census). the livingstone museum — the oldest and largest in zambia — holding five galleries including the david livingstone memorabilia collection donated by the livingstone family.

livingstone is the only city in zambia retaining a non-african colonial name unchanged since independence — because kenneth kaunda, whose father was educated by the scottish missionaries who followed livingstone's footsteps, chose to leave it. the city carries an explorer's name across an independence he never lived to see.

the zambian cities series continues. 🇿🇲🏙