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The main rivers of Zimbabwe with their catchment areas. This is a list of rivers in Zimbabwe. This list is arranged by drainage basin, with respective tributaries ...
Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, [3] with English, Shona, and Ndebele the most common. Zimbabwe is a member of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. The region was long inhabited by the San, and was settled by Bantu peoples around 2000 years ago.
The United Kingdom, which had never recognised Rhodesian independence, briefly imposed direct rule in order to grant independence on 18 April that year as the new country of Zimbabwe. In the 2000s Zimbabwe's economy began to deteriorate due to various factors, including the imposition of economic sanctions by Western countries led by the United ...
The country has been officially called Zimbabwe since 1980, when its name was formally changed from Southern Rhodesia, the name given to it by the British South Africa Company in 1895. Southern Rhodesia was often simply called Rhodesia, particularly between 1964 and 1980. The name Zimbabwe Rhodesia was briefly used in 1979.
Much of the country is on a plateau with a higher central plateau (high veld) forming a watershed between the Zambezi and Limpopo river systems. The flattish watershed region is part of an ancient etchplain called the African Surface covers large swathes of the continent.
The territory to the north of the Zambezi was officially designated Northern Rhodesia by the company, and has been Zambia since 1964; that to the south, which the company dubbed Southern Rhodesia, became Zimbabwe in 1980. Northern and Southern Rhodesia were sometimes informally called "the Rhodesias".
The name Zimbabwe was officially adopted concurrently with Britain's grant of independence in April 1980. Prior to that point, the country had been called Southern Rhodesia from 1898 to 1964 (or 1980, according to British law), Rhodesia from 1964 to 1979, and Zimbabwe Rhodesia between June and December 1979. Since Zimbabwean independence in ...
The Zimbabwe state was composed of over 150 smaller zimbabwes and likely covered 50,000 km² (19,000 square miles). It is unknown what caused Great Zimbabwe's decline from the 15th century, however land depletion or a depletion of critical resources, a decline in global trade, and increased regional competition likely played a role.