Lusaka

Lusaka is the capital of Zambia, the province of Lusaka and the district of the same name, as well as the most populous city in the country. It is located in the south-central zone of Zambia, on a plateau at an altitude of 1,279 meters. It was founded as a colonial city in 1905 on a pre-existing town. In the year 2000 it had a population of 1,640,000. It is believed that this census was not complete, and that the real population is around two million. Its metropolitan area occupies about 360 km², despite which the city itself is small; the financial district does not exceed 2 km². Its main street is Cairo Road, where various institutional and commercial buildings can be found. The street is actually the name given to the section of the Great Northern Highway that runs through the city.

Two languages are mainly spoken in Lusaka: English and Chichewa or nyanja. Only the first is official in the country.

Lusaka has a large number of shops, markets and bazaars. The city has grown from its capital to be a mix between a small colonial and rural nucleus and a large modern capital.

History

Lusaka was founded in 1905 by European settlers on the site of a town named after its chief: Lusaaka, little more than a stop on the railway linking present-day Rhodesia and Tanzania. Shortly after, it received the nickname garden city (in English: garden city). Then it had tree-lined avenues, extensive and well-kept vegetation and colonial-style houses. Due to its central location in the country, in 1931 it replaced Livingstone as the capital of the British colony of Northern Rhodesia. Since then and until the planning that ordered the city in 1952, it developed without control, creating new residential and commercial areas without order or quality, and mixing urban and modern areas with other traditional (indigenous or foreign) and rural areas. With the independence of Zambia in 1964 it became in its capital and Lusaka continued to grow rapidly, being one of the fastest developing cities in post-colonial Africa.

On March 1, 1999, four bombs were detonated in Lusaka, one of which destroyed the Angolan embassy.

Zambia's economy grew rapidly during the 2000s, the government initiated projects designed to improve housing quality and access to services in Lusaka. These included a comprehensive urban development plan, prepared by the government of Zambia and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and an urban and regional planning bill, which was enacted in 2015. However, inequality and underinvestment in housing remain high; in 2015, 70% of residents were still living in unplanned settlements. In 2018, the city council started a road improvement program to deal with chronic traffic congestion. By 2021, the lack of quality housing and services continues to be a problem with no apparent solution.

Demographics

According to the 2010 Zambian census, the population of Lusaka was 1,715,032, of whom 838,210 were men and 876,822 women. This represented an increase of 58 percent since the 2000 census, and the The city has continued to grow rapidly with an estimated population of 2,731,696 in 2020. Although the area historically bordered the territory of the Soli and the Lenje peoples, modern Lusaka does not have a single dominant ethnic group, with all ethnic groups present. the tribes of Zambia. This is the result of extensive migration from all areas of the country to the city, as well as the government's "One Zambia, One Nation" which encourages government employees to work throughout the country, regardless of their area of origin. Although the majority of the population is African and of Bantu people origin, there are also some non-Bantu long-term residents in Lusaka. This includes white people, some of whom are descended from immigrants who settled around the railway in colonial times, and Gujarati-speaking Indians, whose numbers have increased since Zambia's independence. Many of these non-African residents have Zambian citizenship.

Languages

As with the rest of Zambia, English is the official national language in Lusaka and is used in education from the fifth grade in school, at the age of 11, to university. It is also the language used by big business, most newspapers and media, as well as by the government. The lingua franca of the city until the 1980s was the Nyanja language, brought by immigrants from the Eastern Province. Since then, however, with increased migration from the Copper Belt, there has been increasing use of Bemba among city residents, leading to a hybrid language in Lusaka known as Town Nyanja. This language is based on Nyanja, but incorporates vocabulary from English and Bemba, as well as the Nsenga language.

Economy

Lusaka is the economic and financial center of Zambia, the country's main gateway to the rest of the world and the largest business centre. Although district level GDP figures are not recorded in Zambia, at the provincial level, Lusaka Province had the second highest gross domestic product in Zambia in 2014, contributing 27.2% of national output, a figure well below the Copperbelt Province.

Unlike the rest of Zambia, where agriculture and mining are major contributors, Lusaka's economy is dominated by the service sector, as well as wholesale and retail trade. The main areas of employment in the city include finance, insurance, real estate, transport, communications, energy, construction and manufacturing. The headquarters of Zambia's banks are located in the city, as is the Lusaka Stock Exchange, which it opened in 1993.

Multistores

Lusaka is home to the largest and most numerous malls in the country, including Manda Hill, Levy Junction, EastPark, Cosmopolitan and the smaller but also highly-known Arcade Mall. It also has newly built shopping malls such as the Lewanika Mall, Centro Mall, Novare Pinnacle Malls in the Woodlands and along the Great North Road.

Equipment

Cultural places

Lusaka has several places of tourist, historical, artistic and cultural interest:

• Statue of Liberty: Represents a man breaking chains as a metaphor for national independence.
• Kabwata Cultural Centre: Complex of about 300 cottages built in the 1930s and 1940s by the colonial government for black workers. Most of them were demolished in the early 1970s, but 43 were saved to become a cultural centre, where artists from all over the country currently live and from all disciplins: wood and stone sculptors, goldsmiths, textile workers, etc. Unfortunately the cabins are not in good condition.
• Namwane Art Gallery: Gallery located within the district, 15 km from the capital. It focuses on exhibitions by painters and sculptors from Zambia, also exhibiting works by other African artists.
• Munda Wanga Botanical Garden: It is the only botanical garden in the country, in addition to zoo. It was created in 1950 as a private garden and subsequently sold to the state government. In 2008, a project was launched to recover its original conditions and better integrate local flora and fauna.
• National Museum of Lusaka: It is one of the 4 national museums in the country. It was instituted in 1996, although the idea of creating this museum was formed more than ten years earlier. It has two galleries, one of Zambia's contemporary art and one of the country's historical and ethnic objects.

Religious buildings

In Lusaka there are several temples dedicated to different religions, mainly churches and mosques.

• Cathedral of the Holy Cross: Anglican temple located in the district of Ridgeway. The Anglican church in Zambia is very small, and its clergy is minimal. In Lusaka in 1998, there were only two prelates for 33 Anglican communities. The building has been in use since 1962, although it was not consecrated until August 28, 1970.

Institutional buildings

Supreme Courts of Zambia.

Russian Embassy in Lusaka.

Lusaka has the administrative and executive buildings of a state capital, plus a number of foreign embassies.

• Zambia National Assembly.
• Zambian Parliament.
• Governor's Palace North Rodesia.
• Bank of Zambia: one of the two headquarters of the Bank of Zambia. The other one is in Ndola. Finished in 1975, it is one of the most remarkable buildings in the city.

Sports buildings

• Independence Stadium: football stadium.
• Nkoloma Stadium.
• Woodlands Stadium.
• Sunset Stadium.

Education

Lusaka has the largest campus of the University of Zambia, founded in 1965. In addition, the city is home to some of the best colleges in the country, many of them international. Examples are Lusaka International College, Rhodes Park School, Baobab' College, French International College i>, the Italian International College, the Chinese International College and the American International College.

Media

Lusaka, and by extension Zambia, has several newspapers, including Times of Zambia and The Post, both with digital platforms, and Lusaka Times, an electronic-only newspaper founded in 1999, after being conceived a year earlier, and financed by Dutch IICD.

Transportation

The district is served by two airports. Lusaka International Airport, one of the four internationalized in Zambia, is the largest in the country and one of the largest in Africa. It is located next to the railway line between Livingstone and Kitwe, and its use is both public and military. There is another old airport near the urban center, today used occasionally for the private transportation of the president and other executive positions.

It has bus lines for the city itself and for towns on the outskirts.

Climate

Due to its altitude, perched on a plateau, Lusaka enjoys a humid subtropical climate, with mild summers and mild winters. The coldest month is July, with average temperatures around 16 °C, and the hottest, October, around 25 °C. It has a rainy season and a dry season. The latter covers most of the year.

Average climatic parameters of Lusaka, Zambia
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Temp. max. abs. (°C)	39.6	36.4	33.6	33	32	29.9	29.7	33.5	38.5	37.2	38.6	33.9	39.6
Average temperature (°C)	27.4	27.4	27.5	27.1	25.8	23.8	24	26.5	30.3	31.7	30.4	27.7	27.5
Average temperature (°C)	21.5	21.5	21.1	19.9	17.4	15.2	14.9	17.3	21.3	23.5	23.4	21.7	19.9
Temp. medium (°C)	17.6	17.4	16.4	14	10.7	7.8	7.2	9.2	12.9	16.2	17.4	17.8	13.7
Temp. min. abs. (°C)	13	12.9	10	8	5.4	0.2	0.7	2.8	5.8	9	10.8	10.4	0.2
Total precipitation (mm)	245.4	185.9	95	34.7	3.1	0	0.1	0.4	1.7	18.4	89.3	208.1	882.1
Precipitation days (≥ 1 mm)	18	15	10	3	0	0	0	0	0	2	8	16	72
Hours of sun	176.7	168	220.1	246	275.9	270	294.5	303.8	291	272.8	234	182.9	2935.7
Relative humidity (%)	82.3	82.5	80.7	75.8	69.3	65.2	61.1	53.6	46.3	48.6	60.2	78.6	67
Source: NOAA

Twinned cities

• Dusambé, Tajikistan (since 1966).
• Los Angeles, United States (since 1968).
• Cork, Ireland (since 1971).
• Izhevsk, Russia.
• Neuquén, Argentina