Kafue is a town in the

Lusaka Province Lusaka Province is one of the ten provinces of Zambia. Its capital is Lusaka, which is also the national capital. It is the smallest province in Zambia, with an area of 21,896 km2. Lusaka is also Zambia's most populated and most densely po ...

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 ...

and it lies on the north bank of the Kafue River, after which it is named. It is the southern gateway to the central Zambian

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; ), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. Often one or more sides ha ...

on which

Lusaka Lusaka (; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zambia. It is one of the fastest-developing cities in southern Africa. Lusaka is in the southern part of the central plateau at an elevation of about . , the city's population was ab ...

and 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 ...

towns of Kabwe and the Copperbelt are located.Camerapix: "Spectrum Guide to Zambia." Camerapix International Publishing, Nairobi, 1996. It is located on the T2 Road ( Great North Road).

Site

Kafue is at the south-eastern foot of a range of

granite hills Granite Hills is a census-designated place in San Diego County, California, San Diego County, California. The name is also applied to a neighborhood within the city limits of El Cajon, California, El Cajon in the eastern part of that city. The popu ...

rising 200 m and extending over an area of about 250 km², and occupies a shelf of land between the hills and the river, just high enough to avoid its annual flood. The town extends along some shallow

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...

s between the hills. A 400 m wide strip of small farms and gardens separates the town from a bend of the river which is about 300 m wide in the dry season and 1.3 km wide in the rainy season, sometimes inundating a floodplain 10 km wide on the opposite bank, which consequently is uninhabited save for a few small villages or farms on higher ground.Google Earth
accessed 2007.

Transport links

The Kafue River's 50 km wide

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

, the Kafue Flats, is a 240 km long east-west barrier to road and rail connections between the centre of the country and the south. Kafue lies at the eastern end of the

where the river enters the Kafue Gorge and flows down the Zambezi Escarpment into the middle

Zambezi The Zambezi River (also spelled Zambeze and Zambesi) is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east-flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. Its drainage basin covers , slightly less than hal ...

rift valley. Consequently, it's strategically located at the only place where north-south road and rail can easily cross the Kafue River and squeeze through the gap between floodplain and escarpment. The Kafue Railway Bridge on the Lusaka–Livingstone line is at the south end of the town, and the Kafue Bridge 9 km to south-east carries one of the busiest sections of the Great North Road across the river and brings it through the town, from where it continues 50 km north to

. In the other direction the road connects to the

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

border at the Chirundu Bridge, and the main

southern highway In Belize, the TV Ramos Highway takes up where the Hummingbird Highway ends and runs from Dangriga to Punta Gorda, Belize, Punta Gorda. It is entirely paved, with the completion of a 10-mile segment between Golden Stream and Big Falls circa 2008� ...

Livingstone Livingstone may refer to: * Livingstone (name), a Scottish surname and a given name. **David Livingstone (1813–1873), Scottish physician, missionary and explorer, after whom many other Livingstones are named Places *Livingstone Falls, on the Con ...

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...

and

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

branches off it just south of the Kafue Bridge.Terracarta/International Travel Maps, Vancouver Canada: "Zambia, 2nd edition", 2000 The river is not used for commercial

water transport Maritime transport (or ocean transport) and hydraulic effluvial transport, or more generally waterborne transport, is the transport of people (passengers) or goods (cargo) via waterways. Freight transport by sea has been widely used throu ...

. To the west it is too shallow and meandering and does not go near any centres of population, to the east is not navigable due to the Kafue Gorge and dam. However, subsistence fishing and recreational boating and sports fishing takes place on a 60 km stretch of the river above the dam.

Population

According to the 2010 Zambia Census of Population and Housing, Kafue has a total population of 219,000 of which 108,939 are males and 110,061 are females.Zambia Statistics
accessed 20 July 2013.

Religion

Among people aged 15 years and above, 73.11% are

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

, 11.08% belong to other religions, and 15.80% are not affiliated with any

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

Industry

Agriculture and fishing are the traditional occupations of the area, and a

commercial farming Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming (as opposed to extensive farming), conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of agriculture, both of crop plants and of animals, with higher levels of input and output per unit of ag ...

area extends along the edge of the Kafue Flats for 35 km north-west of the town. Commercial fishing operations of any size are limited to fish farming. Kafue has a larger proportion of manufacturing industries compared to most of the towns outside the Copperbelt Province.The Town has an industrial estate with housing and services called Kafue Estates. The industries in Kafue include; * Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia (Agricultural fertilisers) * Bata

Tannery Tanning may refer to: *Tanning (leather), treating animal skins to produce leather *Sun tanning, using the sun to darken pale skin **Indoor tanning, the use of artificial light in place of the sun **Sunless tanning, application of a stain or dye t ...

(shoe leather) - No longer operational. * Textiles - Kafue Textiles - No longer operational. * UNIVERSAL Mining and Chemical Industries Limited (UMCIL), Kafue integrated Iron and Steel plant (Direct Reduced Iron). Phase one of the project was completed in 2007 and is now fully operational, producing 7,000 tonnes of finished rolled iron and steel products per month for the local and regional markets. * Lee Yeast Zambia - The Sole manufacturer of baking yeast (and other baking products) in Zambia. * Alliance Ginnery Zambia - Cotton Ginning company. * Fens Zambia - Manufacturer of spray race equipment and commercial trailers. * Kafue River Cliff - A modern 4 star Hotel located on the banks of the Kafue River operated by the LSA group. Other industries in or near the town: * Kafue National Park - Zambia's oldest and largest national park * Kafue Fisheries Ltd was first established in 1981 with a five hectare project pilot scheme. Over the years, the project has grown to its present size of 60 hectare ponds and is situated in the centre of 1800 hectare wildlife and cattle scheme. The whole

aquaculture Aquaculture (less commonly spelled aquiculture), also known as aquafarming, is the controlled cultivation ("farming") of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other organisms of value such as aquatic plants (e.g. lot ...

system is based on an integrated pig and fish enterprise with annual production of Tilapia exceeding 700 tonnes and 4000 pigs of the ‘heavy hog’ class. * Kafue Quarry produces

construction aggregate Construction aggregate, or simply aggregate, is a broad category of coarse- to medium-grained particulate material used in construction, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, recycled concrete and geosynthetic aggregates. Aggregates ...

for road building and general construction. The firm has been together with Nitrogen Chemicals and Kafue Textiles (no longer in operation) a source of employment for the district for a number of years. *

Kafue Gorge Upper Power Station The Kafue Gorge Upper Power Station (KGU), is an operational hydroelectric power plant across the Kafue River in Zambia. Location KGU is located on the Kafue River, approximately , by road, south of Lusaka, the capital and largest city in Za ...

( generation capacity) operated by the Zambia Electricity Supply Company ( ZESCO) generates

hydroelectricity Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other Renewabl ...

downstream from the town, and at the end of the rainy season its

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

extends back to the town.

Kafue Bulk Water Supply Project (KBWSP)

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Lusaka Province