The most popular African civilization that's well-known to the non-African layman would be the Nile Valley of Egypt and Sudan. But there are plenty of others that are highly important from both African and world's POV. One such is the old civilization of Zimbabwe - the Monomotapa (Monomutapa) Kingdom that existed between 1430 to 1760.
Spread across the Zambezi river valley and covering today's Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and parts of Angola, South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia, the Monomotapa Empire was the successor to the Kingdom of Zimbabwe (1220-1450). Pre-colonial Africa was a labyrinth of civilization and kingdoms having trade routes with both Asia and Europe and had some extraordinary economics and administrative structure. Monomotapa had trade links with empires as far as India and China even on the arrival of the Portuguese in the 17th century on the coast of Angola and Mozambique, the kingdom helped the Portuguese to thrive and establish their colonies on both eastern and western coasts.
Going further back to the 1100s when the only major empire in this region was the Mapungubwe. When in the 13th century, Kingdom of Zimbabwe took over, the only other kingdoms in the region were Kongo (small region at the junction of Congo-DRC tip) and the Kwali Sultanate (around the thin coastal strip of Mozambique-Tanzania). While others were of considerable small sizes, Kingdom of Zimbabwe was pretty much half of today's Zambia. 15th century saw the shrinking of Zimbabwe and rise of Monomotapa, the time when the Kingdom of Kongo became more prevalent, both in size and administration. With the arrival of Portuguese in early 1500s, the region was divided in three parts - a new kingdom of Butua, Monomotapa and Maravi Confederation that covered today's Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
By the end of the 17th century, the Portuguese had entered more inwards, a new empire of Rozvi or Lozvi is now established in Zimbabwe and there is a substantial increase of kingdoms all across the region. In 1760, the Rozvi Empire takes over the Monomotapa with bigger kingdoms neighboring such as Lozi, Mbunda, Lunda etc. and unorganized tribes such as Tswana, Shangana, Teve, Lenji, Nsenga etc. The Portuguese had their firm grip over Mozambique and even the Dutch have now arrived at the Cape of Good Hope region.
By the 19th century further breaking up of the region would take place and now the region that was once just Monomotapa, is now taken over by smaller kingdoms such as Bamangwato, Bakwena, Batawana with Rozvi Empire still very much existing. A rough shape of today's Botswana would start appearing in mid-19th century when Rozvi Empire is now divided into Rozvi, Mthwakazi and Bamangwato. By 1860s, Mthwakazi took over Rozvi Empire that would continue till 1888. And here the arrival of the British would rearrange everything into proper territories, colonies and protectorates.
The British pretty much took over the entire southern Africa and dividing it colonies and in 1895, the colony of Rhodesia is established that is pretty much today's Zimbabwe and Zambia combined. By adding Barotseland (today's western Zambia), the present day boundaries of the two countries were formed in early 1900s. Thus, the territory of Southern Rhodesia was formed that became an effective colony post-1923.
Jumping to 1953 when Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Nyasaland (Malawi) and Southern Rhodesia or simply Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) combined to form the British colony of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Both Northern and Southern Rhodesia achieved independence about the same time between 1964 to 1965. Northern Rhodesia renamed to Zambia while Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1979, wef 18th April 1980 (with an interim name of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia).
A couple of other names can also be found on various maps and documents. Matabeleland, Mashonanland, Charterland, Zimbabweland etc. Matabeleland and Mashonaland were the names coined by the British to divide the administrative regions of Rhodesia. Along with Rhodesia, a few other colonial British name got changed after independence - Esigodini (Essexvale), Chegutu (Hartley), the capital Harare (Salisbury), Masvingo (Fort Victoria) etc.
Like many other African nations, Zimbabwe still retains its original name which had been overshadowed by European colonization. Here's a map of Monomotapa Kingdom dating 1682, which is quite interesting as during this time although there were a couple of other kingdoms and countries, the European mapping of southern Africa showed only one kingdom - Monomotapa. One can see the name Zimbabwe spelled as Zimbaoe, which denotes the Iron Age site of Great Zimbabwe, now in ruins.
@mapsbysagar
@mapsbysagar
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