Qualla: Lusaka–Livingstone Road

Lusaka–Livingstone Road: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GeographicAccountant, CC0. On any given morning a truck leaving Cape Town can, in theory, drive itself north all the way to Cairo. The road exists, in pieces, under a United Nations designation called Trans-African Highway 4. One of those pieces is the T1 in southern Zambia, a 430-kilometre stretch connecting Lusaka to Livingstone and, with it, to Victoria Falls. That road carries tourists, commuters, and the ordinary freight of a landlocked economy: sugar from Mazabuka, timber from Choma, and maize trucked from subsistence farms on the plateau. It also carries traffic that started in Windhoek and Cape Town and Gaborone. A single lane each way, it tries to be too many things at once.

Image: GeographicAccountant | CC0

Lusaka–Livingstone Road: Where the T1 Begins

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GeographicAccountant, CC0. The road does not actually start in Lusaka. It begins 55 kilometres south of the capital, 10 kilometres south of the town of Kafue, at a T-junction called Turnpike in Chikankata District. Here the T1 branches off from the T2, the road that leads north to Lusaka and onward toward ...

Image: GeographicAccountant | CC0

Lusaka–Livingstone Road: Through the Southern Plateau

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GeographicAccountant, CC0. From Mazabuka the road bends west and then southwest through Magoye settlement to Monze, another 60 kilometres on. Past Monze it runs south for 35 kilometres through Chisekesi, where the D375 branches east toward Gwembe and Lake Kariba, to reach Pemba. From Pemba another 60 kilom...

Image: GeographicAccountant | CC0

Lusaka–Livingstone Road: A Road That Used to Be Called Something Else

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit OpenStreetMap contributors, CC BY-SA 2.0. This was once the Great North Road. Before 1935, Livingstone was the capital of Northern Rhodesia, and the road connecting Lusaka to Livingstone was understood as the southern extension of the colony's main north-south artery. Then the capital moved. Lusaka became the seat of gov...

Image: OpenStreetMap contributors | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lusaka–Livingstone Road: One Lane Each Way

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GeographicAccountant, CC0. The T1 is one lane in each direction, which is to say, by international standards, it is barely adequate for the role it plays. Heavy trucks from Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa funnel through on their way to Lusaka, from which they fan out to Tanzania, Malawi and the Democra...

Image: GeographicAccountant | CC0