Qualla: Central Province, Zambia

Central Province, Zambia: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sungaphiri, CC BY-SA 4.0. Go to Kabwe, the provincial capital, and ask anyone to point you to the Mulungushi Rock of Authority. They will send you to an outcropping on the outskirts of town that looks, at first, like nothing - a large granite slab with the wind blowing through the acacia trees around it. But that is where the United National Independence Party held mass rallies in the early 1960s, where Kenneth Kaunda and other founders laid down the rhetoric that would become the new country. In 1968, the Mulungushi Declaration was issued here, proclaiming Zambia a socialist nation. The rock is still a rock. The echo of those rallies is still in the air if you stand still long enough.

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Image: Sungaphiri | CC BY-SA 4.0

Central Province, Zambia: Geography of the Middle

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Here37, CC0. Central Province covers 94,394 square kilometers and shares a border with eight other provinces, which gives you a sense of its centrality to Zambia's internal geography. Its total forested area is nearly 9.1 million hectares - a significant share of the country's woodland. The s...

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Image: Here37 | CC0

Central Province, Zambia: Redrawing the Lines

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Furfur, Peter in s, Location map:NordNordWest, CC BY-SA 4.0. Like most Zambian provinces, Central has been administratively reshuffled more times in the last fifteen years than in the forty before. In 2013, President Michael Sata carved Chisamba out of Chibombo District. In 2015, Ngabwe was separated from Kapiri Mposhi District, with the f...

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Image: Furfur, Peter in s, Location map:NordNordWest | CC BY-SA 4.0

Central Province, Zambia: Kafue, Kasanka, and the Lukanga Swamp

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Badboybenny, CC BY-SA 3.0. Central Province borders or contains a remarkable share of Zambia's protected wild land. Kafue National Park, the country's largest, is shared with Southern and North-Western Provinces - a park bigger than Wales with populations of elephant, lion, leopard, and sable antelope. Blu...

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Image: Badboybenny | CC BY-SA 3.0

Central Province, Zambia: Kabwe, Lala, and the Bemba Lingua Franca

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dynastik99, CC BY-SA 4.0. The provincial capital is Kabwe, a town that began as a colonial-era lead and zinc mining center and is still recovering from the environmental legacy of that industry. Kabwe hosts Mulungushi Hall, the venue for most of Zambia's international conventions, and the Mulungushi Rock ...

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Image: Dynastik99 | CC BY-SA 4.0