A final look at Zambia

African Painted Dog (a rare sight)

Area:  290,000 square miles

Ethnicity: 99.5% African     0.5% include Europeans, Asians and Americans

Geography:  Near the southern edges, 3 major rivers flow into Victoria Falls (which CNN has called One of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World), to the north and west, plateaus descend into vast floodplains

Official language:  English

Population:  14,6000,000 (2014)
Religions:  50-75% Christian, 24-49% Muslim and Hindu

History:

• The San roamed the area as hunters/gatherers using stone tools until the 4th Century.  One of their legacies is the "clicking" language their descendants are known for.
• The more technologically advanced Bantus displaced the San.  The Bantus were the first to mine copper for tools and weapons in the area.
• First European explorers arrived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
• In the 1920's an outcast clan of the Zulu tribe came to rule the area and the first British explorer, Dr. David Livingstone, saw the waterfall called "the smoke that thunders" by the natives.  Livingstone named it Victoria Falls after the British queen.  (Yes, he is of the "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" fame)
• Northern Rhodesia, as Zambia was known, became part of the British sphere in 1888 and copper mining boosted interest in the region.
• Zambia became an independent country in 1964.
• With the drastic fall of copper prices and a corrupt, unstable one-party political system, Zambia suffered through dark times until recently.
• In the past 6 years, Zambia is recovering and is a relatively stable and wealthy African nation.

Impala



A herd of Cape buffalo

Cape buffalo