Welcome to Zimbabwe

Our 3^rd country on this overland trip is Zimbabwe, and once again, it is worth sharing a few factoids about this country to put things in better context and to educate myself (and you, if needed) a little about this corner of the world.

• As you can see in the map above, Zimbabwe is a land-locked country bordering South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique, centered on the Tropic of Capricorn located between the latitudes 16.5-22 degrees south, which in terms of distance from the equator is the southern hemisphere equivalent to, say, Haiti and Hawaii in the northern hemisphere.
• Slightly larger than Montana.
• Roughly 15 million people, compared to ~332 million in the U.S..
• 16 official languages (yikes!), which is the most in the world, but the majority of black Zimbabweans speak Shona (70%) or Ndebele (20%), while English is the first language of white Zimbabweans and is used in government and business and as the main medium of instruction in schools.
• Government is a presidential republic, which includes executive, legislative and judicial branches with a structure similar to South Africa that I described previously, except that the president exerts almost total control over the three branches through appointments. Note, since Robert Mugabe lost his 30-year presidency and almost dictatorial rule of the country in 2017, the government has been in turmoil and the distribution of powers unstable – so who knows what the future holds.
• Official currency is the Zimbabwe Dollar, but almost all transactions can be conducted in US Dollars and is the preferred currency on the street and with businesses.
• Major exports include gold and other minerals (platinum, nickel and iron) and tobacco. Diamonds were discovered in Marange, eastern Zimbabwe, in 2006, but their production is steeped in massive human rights violations.
• Less than 1% of the population identifies as belonging to indigenous groups, including the Tshawa and Doma, although the government does not recognize them.
• Like most African countries, Zimbabwe suffered oppressive European colonization, beginning in the sixteenth century, when Portuguese colonials ventured inland from Mozambique and attacked the Kingdom of Mutapa, which then controlled an area roughly equivalent to eastern Zimbabwe and western Mozambique. Portuguese influence over Mutapa endured for about two centuries before fading away during the 1690s and early-1700s). During the year of 1685, French Huguenots emigrated to modern-day Zimbabwe (and adjoining countries) and co-existed with the indigenous people. During the 1880s and 1890s, the British South Africa Company initiated colonization by Whites, backed by a royal charter from Queen Victoria, and by 1895 the company ruled over the domain they named “Southern Rhodesia” (the area of modern-day Zimbabwe) after its founder, Cecil Rhodes. The company charter expired in 1923 and the area became a self-governing British colony until 1965 when the white minority declared independence from Britain to avoid having black majority rule. Finally, in 1980 the country was one of the last African states to gain independence from Britain after a 15-year long Civil War – and was renamed Zimbabwe.
• Has the second highest concentration of elephants in Africa!
• Has ~27% of its total land area devoted to national parks, reserves and wildlife management areas – pretty impressive for a country struggling with economic development!