Livingstone, Zambia
Livingstone is a city in Southern Province, Zambia. Lying 10 km to the north of the Zambezi River, it is a tourist attraction due to its proximity to the Victoria Falls and its road and rail connections to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, the resort town on the opposite side of the falls. A historic British colonial city, its present population was enumerated at 177,393 inhabitants at the 2022 census. It is named after David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer and missionary who was the first European to explore the area. From 1911 until 1935, it served as the first capital of Northern Rhodesia. From 1907 to 2011, when replaced by Choma, Livingstone was the capital of Zambia's Southern Province.
History
Pre-colonial history
Mukuni, to the south-east of present-day Livingstone, was the largest village in the area before Livingstone was founded. Its Baleya inhabitants, originally from the Rozwi culture in Zimbabwe, were conquered by Chief Mukuni who came from the Congo in the 16th century. Another group of Baleya under Chief Sekute lived near the river west of the town. The predominant people in the area, though, were the Batoka under Chief Musokotwane based at Senkobo, north. These are southern Tonga people but are culturally and linguistically similar to the Baleya.The Subiya paid tribute to the Lozi of Barotseland but in 1838 the Kololo, a Sotho tribe from South Africa displaced by Zulu wars, migrated north and conquered the Lozi. The Kololo placed chiefs of their subordinate Subiya people of Sesheke over the Tokaleya. In 1855 Scottish missionary traveller David Livingstone became the first European to be shown the Zambezi in Livingstone's vicinity, and to see Victoria Falls by the Subiya-Kololo Chief Sekeletu.
Colonial history
In the 1890s Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company established British rule north of the Zambezi and launched a wave of mineral prospecting and exploration activity, in addition ventured into other natural resources such as timber, ivory and animal skins in a territory called North-Western Rhodesia. The main crossing point of the Zambezi was above the falls at the Old Drift, first by dugout canoe, later by an iron boat propelled by eight Lozi paddlers, or a barge towed across with a steel cable. The Batoka Gorge and the deep valley and gorges of the middle Zambezi meant there was no better crossing point between the Falls and Kariba Gorge, north-east. As the Old Drift crossing became more frequently used, a British colonial settlement sprang up there and around 1897 it became the first municipality in the country; it is sometimes referred to as 'Old Livingstone'. Its proximity to mosquito breeding areas caused deaths from malaria, prompting the Europeans to move to the higher ground known as Constitution Hill or Sandbelt Post Office after 1900. As that area grew into a town it was named Livingstone in honour of the explorer.In the mid-1890s Rhodesia Railways had reached Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia spurring industrial development there, fueled by the coal mines at Hwange just south-east of Mosi-oa-Tunya. The railway was extended to Hwange for the coal, but Rhodes's vision was to keep pushing north to extend the British Empire, and he would have built it to Cairo if he could. In 1904 the railway reached the Falls on the southern side and construction of the Victoria Falls Bridge started. Too impatient to wait for its completion, Rhodes had the line from Livingstone to Kalomo built and operations started some months in advance of the bridge using a single locomotive which was conveyed in pieces by temporary cableway across the gorge next to the bridge building site.
The city was founded in 1905. The British South Africa Company moved the capital of the territory there in 1907. In 1911 the company merged the territory with North-Eastern Rhodesia as Northern Rhodesia. Livingstone prospered from its position as a gateway foir trade between the north and south sides of the Zambezi, as well as from farming in the Southern Province and commercial timber production from forests to the north-west. A number of colonial buildings were erected which still stand. Although the capital was moved to Lusaka in 1935 to be closer to the economic heartland of the Copperbelt, industries based on timber, hides,, cotton and other agricultural products grew. A hydroelectric plant was built taking water from the Eastern Cataract of the Falls. The town of Victoria Falls in Southern Rhodesia had the tourist trade, but many supplies were bought from Livingstone.
Of all the towns in Northern Rhodesia, colonial Livingstone took on the most British character. Surrounded by a large number of African settlements, the city was segregated. The north and western areas of the town and the town centre were reserved for the colonial government and white-owned businesses and associated residential areas, while African townships such as Maramba were in the east and south and were inhabited by workers, servants, craftsman, tradesman, as well as a large numbers of non-working black families living on welfare. Asians and people of mixed race owned businesses in the middle, on the eastern side of the city centre.
During World War II, 170 Polish refugees escaping from German- and Soviet-occupied Poland, were admitted to Livingstone in 1941, and a Polish consular post was established.
As the British government began publicly discussing independence, and news of the large scale massacres of white colonists in the nearby Belgian Congo became evident, many white residents, fearing abandonment by the British colonial government, began migrating south towards Southern Rhodesia or South Africa. When Northern Rhodesia obtained independence as Zambia in 1964, many more whites left. When Zambia gained independence there were only 100 black college graduates in the country, almost all in social sciences from the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. In 1968, a one party state had been established which seized most remaining non-black property, especially those of whites. Consequently, most of the remaining Northern Rhodesians left after an official policy of nationalisation in Zambia was announced.
Post-independence
Some colonial civic buildings were destroyed and replaced with an African architecture, although Livingstone was used as a location for a 1950s Rhodesian town in the 1981 movie The Grass Is Singing.At the same time, a large infusion of cash from the British government to Zambia at independence was partially used in Livingstone. Livingstone suffered economic decline in the 1970s due in part to renationalisation of industries and in part to closure of the border with Rhodesia, first by the Zambian government and later by the Rhodesian authorities.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, Livingstone has experienced a resurgence in tourism and has firmly become the destination of choice when visiting the Victoria Falls. Livingstone has enjoyed a slight influx of investment in the industry from modern hotel chains like Sun International, to some modern street strip mall centers and restaurants. Apart from tourism, the other hope on Livingstone's horizon is development stimulated by the with the opening of the Katima Mulilo Bridge and completion of the Trans–Caprivi Highway west, which funnels more trade through the town.
Climate
Livingstone has a hot semi-arid climate with hot and rainy wet seasons and very hot pre-wet seasons and mild dry seasons with large temperature differences between day and night.Transport
Air
The city is served by Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula International Airport, which receives domestic flights from Lusaka and connects with various international cities, including Johannesburg, Cape Town, Mbombela & Nairobi.Rail
The city is served by the operating sections of the Cape to Cairo Railway, which connect it to Lusaka in the north-east and Bulawayo in the south-east. The railway to Lusaka is also named the Zambia Railway. The Mulobezi Railway connects Livingstone to the Mulobezi timber industry in the west.Road
The Lusaka-Livingstone road connects Livingstone with Kalomo, Choma and the national capital in the north-east. The same road connects southwards, crossing into Zimbabwe via Victoria Falls Bridge .The M10 road connects westwards to Kazungula and to Sesheke. This road from Livingstone to the Katima Mulilo Bridge is part of the Walvis Bay-Ndola-Lubumbashi Development Road. The M10 further connects with Senanga and Mongu.