Zimbabwe

Through the ages

Rivals in history

The kingdoms, empires and states Zimbabwe fought or stood against, from the first to today.

1. 🇵🇹 Portuguese Empire1561 to 1693

   Portuguese traders and soldiers pushed up the Zambezi for gold. A missionary was killed at the Mutapa court in 1561, an armed expedition followed, and in 1629 a Mutapa ruler became a Portuguese vassal. Changamire Dombo's Rozvi drove the Portuguese off the plateau in the 1690s.

2. Ngoni and Nguni raiders1830 to 1840

   Nguni groups fleeing the Zulu wars, among them Zwangendaba's Ngoni, swept across the plateau in the 1830s. Their raids helped bring down the Rozvi state before the Ndebele settled in the south west.

3. 🇬🇧 British South Africa Company1890 to 1897

   Cecil Rhodes's company occupied Mashonaland in 1890, crushed Lobengula's Ndebele in 1893, and defeated the Ndebele and Shona risings of 1896 and 1897, remembered as the First Chimurenga. The spirit medium Nehanda was hanged in 1898.

4. Rhodesian Front government1965 to 1979

   Ian Smith's white minority government fought the guerrillas of ZANU and ZAPU in the Second Chimurenga from 1966. The war spread across the country in the late 1970s and ended with the Lancaster House Agreement of December 1979.

5. 🇿🇦 South Africa1980 to 1990

   Apartheid South Africa tried to destabilise the new Zimbabwe, which backed the ANC. Its agents carried out sabotage and bombings, and in May 1986 its forces raided ANC targets in Harare. The hostility ended with the fall of apartheid.

6. RENAMO1982 to 1992

   To protect its rail and oil pipeline route to the port of Beira, Zimbabwe sent thousands of troops into Mozambique to fight the RENAMO rebels from 1982. They stayed until Mozambique's peace agreement of 1992.

7. 🇷🇼 Rwanda and Uganda backed rebels1998 to 2002

   In 1998 Zimbabwe sent troops to defend Laurent Kabila's Congo against rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda. The costly intervention, tied to mining deals, lasted until Zimbabwe withdrew in 2002 after the war's peace agreements.

Today

Zimbabwe now

The hunter-gatherer San people first inhabited the area that eventually became Zimbabwe. D. 500 during the Bantu expansion, and Shona-speaking societies began to develop in the Limpopo valley and Zimbabwean highlands around the 9th century. These societies traded with Arab merchants on the Indian Ocean coast and organized under the Kingdom of Mapungubwe in the 11th century. A series of powerful trade-oriented Shona states succeeded Mapungubwe, including the Kingdom of Zimbabwe (ca.

Capital

Harare

Government

presidential republic

Head of government

Emmerson Mnangagwa

Languages

Northern Ndebele, Sesotho, Tswana

Area

390,760 km²

Through time

Then and now

• Population16.3 million2023 · 2.8 million in 1950
• Life expectancy62.8 years2023 · 49.4 years in 1950
• GDP per person$1,7032022 · $1,117 in 1950
• Living in cities41%2025 · 11% in 1950
• Literacy93%2019 · 23% in 1950
• Political regimeElectoral autocracy2025 · Electoral autocracy in 1950
• Military alliancesNone of these2024 · None of these in 1950
• Military spending0.6% of GDP2025
• War deathsNone2025

Population: HYDE 3.3, Gapminder and UN WPP. GDP per capita: Maddison Project Database 2023. Urban share: UN WPP. Life expectancy: Riley, HMD, UN WPP. Literacy: OWID historical estimates, World Bank, UNESCO. Military spending: SIPRI. War deaths: UCDP. Political regime: V-Dem, Regimes of the World. All via Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0). Alliances and organization memberships: compiled by Atlas. Satellites in orbit: CelesTrak SATCAT. Modern borders, backcast.

Relations

Close partners and tensions

Summarised from World Bank and Wikipedia data, updated 23 October 2026.