Early history
San hunter-gatherers lived on the Zimbabwean plateau for thousands of years. Their rock paintings can still be seen in the Matobo Hills and in hundreds of other sites across the country.
In the first millennium AD, Bantu-speaking farming communities settled the plateau. They worked iron, herded cattle and grew crops, and they are the ancestors of most Zimbabweans today.
Great Zimbabwe and the kingdoms of the plateau
From the 11th century, a powerful state grew around Great Zimbabwe, near today’s Masvingo. Its rulers traded gold and ivory with the Swahili coast and beyond, and its builders raised walls up to eleven metres high from granite blocks laid without mortar. Great Zimbabwe is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and gives the country its name.
When Great Zimbabwe declined in the 15th century, its traditions continued in other states: the Mutapa state in the north, the Torwa state at Khami, near Bulawayo, and later the Rozvi.
In the 1840s the Ndebele, led by Mzilikazi, settled in the south-west. Under his son Lobengula, Bulawayo became the capital of the Ndebele kingdom.
The colonial period
In 1890 the Pioneer Column of Cecil Rhodes’s British South Africa Company occupied Mashonaland and founded Fort Salisbury, today’s Harare. The Ndebele kingdom was conquered in 1893. In 1896–97 the Shona and Ndebele rose against colonial rule in the First Chimurenga, led among others by the spirit mediums Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi.
The territory became the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, self-governing from 1923. In 1965 the settler government of Ian Smith declared independence from Britain unilaterally, to keep power in the hands of the white minority.
The liberation struggle and independence
The liberation movements ZANU and ZAPU took up arms in the Second Chimurenga, the war of liberation, in the 1960s and 1970s. The war ended with the Lancaster House Agreement of December 1979 and elections in February 1980.
Zimbabwe became independent on 18 April 1980, with Canaan Banana as President and Robert Mugabe as Prime Minister. Bob Marley performed at the independence celebrations at Rufaro Stadium in Harare.
On 22 December 1987 ZANU-PF and PF-ZAPU signed the Unity Accord. The day is a public holiday, Unity Day.
Zimbabwe today
Zimbabwe adopted its current Constitution in 2013. It recognises 16 official languages. Emmerson Mnangagwa has been President since 2017. Under Vision 2030, the country aims to become an upper-middle-income economy by 2030.
Zimbabwe and the Nordic countries have worked together since independence, in development, education, trade and culture. Read about the countries the Embassy serves on Countries we serve.