Kabwe is the capital of the

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...

n Central Province and the

Kabwe District Kabwe District is a district of Zambia, located in Central Province. The capital lies at Kabwe Kabwe is the capital of the Zambian Central Province and the Kabwe District, with a population estimated at 202,914 at the 2010 census. Named Broken ...

, with a population estimated at 202,914 at the 2010 census. Named Broken Hill until 1966, it was founded when

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

and

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

deposits were discovered in 1902. Kabwe also has a claim to being the birthplace of Zambian politics as it was an important political centre during the colonial period. Kabwe is an important transportation, farming and university centre. Kabwe is becoming a major agricultural hub for the country is the headquarters for Zambia Railways and prison services. Additionally the mining industry has been important to the economic development of the region. However, because of the exceptional contamination of the city with lead and other toxins, and the effects of these on local children's health, a March 2022 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment identified the town as a

sacrifice zone A sacrifice zone or sacrifice area (often termed a national sacrifice zone or national sacrifice area) is a geographic area that has been permanently impaired by heavy environmental alterations or economic disinvestment, often through locally unwant ...

for industry.

History

Headquarters of Zambia Railways

Rhodesian Railways under construction near Broken Hill Zambia

The first railway in the country, operated by

Rhodesian Railways The National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), formerly Rhodesia Railways, is a state-owned company in Zimbabwe that operates the country's national railway system. It is headquartered in the city of Bulawayo. In addition to the headquarters, it has ...

when the territory was administered as

North-Western Rhodesia North-Western Rhodesia, in south central Africa, was a territory administered from 1891 until 1899 under charter by the British South Africa Company. In 1890 the British South Africa Company signed a treaty with King Lewanika of the Barotse, one ...

and

North-Eastern Rhodesia North-Eastern Rhodesia was a British protectorate in south central Africa formed in 1900.North-Eastern Rhodesia Order in Council, 1900 The protectorate was administered under charter by the British South Africa Company. It was one of what were ...

, reached the Broken Hill mine as early as 1906, and the town became the northern base for the railway, which was the second biggest employer after the

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

industry. A locomotive maintenance facility was constructed there. In 1909 the railway reached

Ndola Ndola is the third largest city in Zambia and third in terms of size and population, with a population of 475,194 (''2010 census provisional''), after the capital, Lusaka, and Kitwe, and the second largest in terms of infrastructure development aft ...

in what was to become the

Copperbelt The Copperbelt () is a natural region in Central Africa which sits on the border region between northern Zambia and the southern Democratic Republic of Congo. It is known for copper mining. Traditionally, the term ''Copperbelt'' includes the ...

. The railway workers' unions played a large role in the politics of the country. In racially segregated colonial times before Africans had the vote, the town was the seat of

Roy Welensky Sir Roland "Roy" Welensky, (''né'' Raphael Welensky; 20 January 1907 – 5 December 1991) was a Northern Rhodesian politician and the second and last Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Born in Salisbury, Southern Rh ...

, leader of the powerful

Rhodesia Railway Workers Union The Rhodesian Railway Workers' Union (R.R.W.U.) was a trade union in Rhodesia which represented European railway workers employed by the Rhodesian Railways. History Trade union organisation on the Rhodesian railways had its origins in World War ...

(RRWU), who became

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

of the ill-fated

Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, also known as the Central African Federation or CAF, was a colonial federation that consisted of three southern African territories: the Self-governing colony, self-governing British colony of Southe ...

, which was opposed by the Northern Rhodesia Railway

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

(the black Africans' union) led by

Dixon Konkola Dixon may refer to: Places International * Dixon Entrance, part of the Inside Passage between Alaska and British Columbia Canada * Dixon, Ontario United States * Dixon, California * Dixon, Illinois * Dixon, Greene County, Indiana * Dixon, Ind ...

and also based in Kabwe. Today, the town is the headquarters of

Zambia Railways Zambia Railways (ZR) is the national railway company of Zambia, one of the two major railway organisations in Zambia. The other system is the binational TAZARA Railway (TAZARA) that interconnects with the ZR at Kapiri Mposhi and provides a link to ...

but employment levels on the railway have been heavily cut.

Independence protest

Reflecting Kabwe's central location and railway union base, it was chosen as the site for a rally held on October 26, 1958, at Mulungushi Rock north of the city by the Kaunda- Kapwepwe breakaway group from the

Zambian African National Congress The Northern Rhodesia Congress was a political party in Zambia. History The Northern Rhodesia Congress party was formed in 1940, as the Northern Rhodesia Congress (NRC) or Northern Rhodesia African Congress (NRAC). Godwin Lewanika, a Barotseland ...

. Later, they founded the political party

UNIP The United National Independence Party (UNIP) is a political party in Zambia. It governed the country from 1964 to 1991 under the socialist President (government title), presidency of Kenneth Kaunda, and was the sole legal party in the country ...

which led the successful independence movement and continued to hold conferences at Mulungushi Rock, which became known as the 'birthplace of independence' in Zambia.

Districts

Makululu

A large informal settlement on the outskirts of the city, Makululu is an important district in the town. The settlement is on the edge of the

Lukanga Swamp Lukanga Swamp is a major wetland in the Central Province of Zambia, about 50 km west of Kabwe.Terracarta/International Travel Maps, Vancouver Canada: "Zambia, 2nd edition", 2000 Its permanently swampy area consists of a roughly circular are ...

, and is thus vulnerable to flooding. Similarly, the water is highly contaminated from both poor sanitation and the broader industrial pollution from the mine.

Environmental issues

Mine pollution

A study by the

Blacksmith Institute Pure Earth is a New York City-based international not-for-profit organization founded in 1999 that works to identify, clean up, and solve pollution problems in low- and middle-income countries, where high concentrations of toxic pollution have dev ...

found Kabwe to be one of the ten most polluted places in the world due mostly to heavy metal (mostly zinc and lead) tailings making their way into the local water supply. A 2014 report indicates that children's blood lead levels continue to be elevated even though mining has stopped. A 2020 study, found high levels of lead and cadmium in blood levels. A March 2022 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment identified the town as a

for industry. Other studies, have found high potential for copper, cobalt and other non-lead materials in leachate from the mine.

Transportation

As well as being on the main

line, it lies on the Great North Road. On February 7, 2013, a bus collided with two cars near Kabwe, killing 53 people. It was one of the worst road accidents in Zambian history.

Industries and agriculture

Historically the economy of Kabwe has been dominated by the mine. Other industries include pharmaceuticals, milling and cotton ginning, and Kabwe's first Drinking Water Plant (Aquador Purifed Water) and

leather tanning Tanning is the process of treating skins and hides of animals to produce leather. A tannery is the place where the skins are processed. Tanning hide into leather involves a process which permanently alters the protein structure of skin, makin ...

.Zamnet Online News:
"Kabwe: From discovery to recovery" (Zambia Daily Mail), website accessed 7 March 2007. To the east of the city are the hydro-electric power stations of the

Mulungushi Dam The Mulungushi Dam located 50 km south-east of Kabwe, Zambia was constructed by the Broken Hill Development Company on the Mulungushi River and opened in 1925 by the then Prince of Wales (the future Edward VIII) to provide hydroelectric power to ...

Mita Hills Dam Mita Hills Dam is an embankment dam with a hydroelectric power station and reservoir located near Kabwe, in the Central Province of Zambia. Construction of the dam began in 1955. The reservoir is approximately 30 km long by 3-5 km wide. Bream ...

and Lunsemfwa Falls, built to power the mine and town. Commercial farming areas surround the city about 10 km from the centre, and the road and rail links provide ready access to the markets of the Copperbelt and Lusaka.

Mine

The name ''Kabwe'' or ''Kabwe-Ka Mukuba'' means 'ore' or 'smelting' but the European/Australian prospectors named it Broken Hill after a similar mine in

Broken Hill, New South Wales Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It is ...

, Australia. The mine was the largest in the country for around thirty years until it was overtaken in the early 1930s by larger copper mining complexes on the

. Apart from lead and zinc it also produced

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...

and heavy metals such as

cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Like zinc, it demonstrates oxidation state +2 in most of ...

vanadium Vanadium is a chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery-grey, malleable transition metal. The elemental metal is rarely found in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an oxide layer ( pas ...

, and

titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

in smaller quantities.

Bruce Kapferer Bruce Kapferer (born 1940 in Sydney) is an Australian anthropologist. He is best known for his work on Sri Lanka, Australia and Zambia. He has been at the forefront of anthropological debate for over three decades. He was honoured with Huxley ...

: "Strategy and Transaction in an African Factory", Manchester: Manchester University Press 1972 In 1921 a

human fossil The following tables give an overview of notable finds of hominin fossils and remains relating to human evolution, beginning with the formation of the tribe Hominini (the divergence of the human and chimpanzee lineages) in the late Miocene, roug ...

, a skull, dubbed ''

Kabwe 1 Kabwe 1 (also called the Broken Hill skull, Rhodesian Man) is a Middle Paleolithic fossil assigned by Arthur Smith Woodward in 1921 as the type specimen for ''Homo rhodesiensis'', now mostly considered a synonym of ''Homo heidelbergensis''.Hubl ...

'', also "Broken Hill Man" or "Rhodesian Man" (classified as ''

Homo rhodesiensis ''Homo rhodesiensis'' is the species name proposed by Arthur Smith Woodward (1921) to classify Kabwe 1 (the "Kabwe skull" or "Broken Hill skull", also "Rhodesian Man"), a Middle Stone Age fossil recovered from a cave at Broken Hill, or Kabwe, No ...

'' or ''

Homo heidelbergensis ''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of ''H. erectus'' in ...

'') was found in the mine. The mine, which occupies a 2.5 km² site 1 km south-west of the town centre, is closed but metals are still extracted from old

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...

. Closure of the mine led to economic decline for Kabwe. It has a number of

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...

industries including the Zambia-China Mulungushi

textiles Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

plant established with Chinese investment in the 1980s, but after suffering large losses this plant closed (temporarily according to management) at the beginning of 2007.

Climate

Institutions and attractions

Mulungushi Rock of Authority Mulungushi Rock of Authority, also known as Mulungushi Rock, is a Inselberg, kopje (isolated rock hill) in the Central Province, Zambia, Central Province of Zambia associated with major political gatherings and speeches. Situated near the Mulungush ...

, north of the city *

Mulungushi University Mulungushi University is one of the public universities of Zambia. Previously known as the National College of Management and Development Studies, it was turned into a university by the Zambian Government in a public-private partnership with Kon ...

Kabwe Warriors Kabwe Warriors is a Zambian football club based in Kabwe that plays in the Zambian Premier League. They play their home games at Godfrey 'Ucar' Chitalu 107 Stadium in Kabwe. They are the second most successful club in Zambia in terms of trophies ...

football club, one of the top three teams in the country *

Zambia National Service The Zambia National Service, abbreviated ZNS, is part of the Zambian Defence Force whose primary objective is to train Zambian citizens in agriculture and craft skillsit was formed in 1963 as a Army, Land Army before it was renamed to Zambia Nation ...

Training School * Chindwin Barracks and Kohima Barracks (

Zambian Defence Force The Zambian Defence Force is the military of Zambia. It consists of the Zambian Army, the Zambian Air Force, and the Zambia National Service. The defence forces were formed at Zambian independence on 24 October 1964, from constituent units of the ...

) * Mulungushi Boat Club,

Kwame Nkrumah University Kwame Nkrumah University (KNU) is a public university in Zambia. Location The university's main campus is in the central business district of the city of Kabwe, approximately by road north of Lusaka, the capital and largest city in Zambia. T ...

, a public institution of higher education *

Paglory University Paglory University is a Christian private university of education, that is located in the city of Kabwe, within the Central Province of Zambia. History Paglory University was established in 1996 as Paglory College of Education. It was upgraded to ...

* Ellensmere High School

Notable people

Wilbur Smith Wilbur Addison Smith (9 January 1933 – 13 November 2021) was a Zambian-born British-South African novelist specialising in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries, seen from the viewpoints ...

, novelist * Michael Norgrove, boxer * Tutwa Ngulube, politician

References

External links

* *http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/the-rebirth-of-kabwe-town/ *http://www.bmrplc.com/kabwe_mine.php *https://www.investincentralzambia.com/wordpress/kabwe-district-profile/ *https://www.mindat.org/loc-4341.htm *https://www.zambia-info.org/country/town/1316/kabwe {{Authority control Populated places in Central Province, Zambia Provincial capitals in Zambia Mining communities in Africa Mining in Zambia 1902 establishments in the British Empire