Qualla: Kalulushi

Kalulushi: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Kalulu means hare in the Lamba language, and somewhere along the small river that waters this corner of the Zambian Copperbelt, enough hares were once running through the grass that a name stuck. The river became Kalulushi. The town, built deliberately and with military precision in 1953 as a company town for copper and cobalt miners, took the river's name and made it a postal address. Seventy-plus years later, the mine shafts that paid for Kalulushi's street grid are mostly silent, but the town still counts 170,701 residents in its 2022 census, and a Catholic university and two health colleges have replaced the mining companies as its organizing institutions.

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Kalulushi: Made for the Mine

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Kalulushi was established in 1953 as a planned company town for workers at the nearby Chibuluma copper and cobalt mine. For five years, it operated as a private settlement, its houses, roads, and services owned by the mining companies. In 1958, it became a public town. The geomet...

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Kalulushi: Shafts That Closed

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The story of Kalulushi in the last thirty years is the story of what happens when the industry a town was built for begins to contract. Two Shaft closed in the 1990s. Seven Shaft followed in 2005. Economic activity in the town and surrounding district declined severely with those...

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Kalulushi: Forests of Pine and Eucalyptus

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

West of the town lies the Chati Forest Reserve, where large plantations of eucalyptus and tropical pine were established to supply timber for the mining industry. Mines need pit props, roof supports, and roundwood, and the copper country's native miombo woodland could not produce...

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Kalulushi: A Catholic University

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In April 2008, Zambia Catholic University opened its doors on President Avenue, a private institution run by the Zambia Episcopal Conference. It now offers degrees in education, development studies, business administration, economics, banking and finance, accountancy, human resou...

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Kalulushi: The Hare on the Riverbank

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The name at the heart of the town is almost a small joke. Kalulu is the hare, the trickster figure who appears in Lamba and other regional folklore as a clever survivor, small against bigger creatures but usually winning by wit. The locals who named the Kalulushi River were honor...

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