Difference between revisions of "Harare" - New World Encyclopedia
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The capital city retained the name Salisbury until April 18, 1982, the second anniversary of Zimbabwean independence, when it was changed to Harare. | The capital city retained the name Salisbury until April 18, 1982, the second anniversary of Zimbabwean independence, when it was changed to Harare. | ||
| − | + | Mugabe's chaotic land redistribution campaign, which began in 2000, caused an exodus of white farmers, crippled the economy, and ushered in widespread shortages of basic commodities. | |
| − | + | Ignoring international condemnation, Mugabe rigged the 2002 presidential election to ensure his reelection. The ruling ZANU-PF party used fraud and intimidation to win a two-thirds majority in the March 2005 parliamentary election, allowing it to amend the constitution at will and recreate the Senate, which had been abolished in the late 1980s. | |
| + | |||
| + | In April 2005, Harare embarked on Operation Restore Order, ostensibly an urban rationalization program, which resulted in the destruction of the homes or businesses of 700,000 mostly poor supporters of the opposition. This caused a sharp reaction in the international community because it took place without prior warning and no advance plans were made to provide alternative housing. | ||
This was followed by [[Operation Chikerema]] (Operation "Better Living") a year later which consisted of building concrete housing. Critics however, stated that these were inadequate citing the lack of electricity, plumbing or other infrastructure in poorly accessible areas. | This was followed by [[Operation Chikerema]] (Operation "Better Living") a year later which consisted of building concrete housing. Critics however, stated that these were inadequate citing the lack of electricity, plumbing or other infrastructure in poorly accessible areas. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Mugabe in June 2007 instituted price controls on all basic commodities causing panic buying and leaving store shelves empty for months. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Harare has been adversely affected by the political and economic crisis plaguing Zimbabwe. The elected council was replaced by a government-appointed commission for alleged inefficiency, but essential services such as rubbish collection and street repairs have rapidly worsened, and are now virtually non-existent. In May 2006, the Zimbabwean newspaper the ''[[Financial Gazette]]'', described the city in an editorial as a "sunshine city-turned-sewage farm".<ref>''Financial Gazette'' editorial of [[17 May]] [[2006]] "Zimbabwe: It's Chombo's Fault" [http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/may19_2006.html#Z13]</ref> | ||
==Government== | ==Government== | ||
Revision as of 02:23, 27 November 2008
| Harare, Zimbabwe | |||
 |
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|
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| Nickname: H Town | |||
| Motto: Pamberi Nekushandria Vanhu (Forward with Service to the People) | |||
 |
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| Coordinates: {{#invoke:Coordinates|coord}}{{#coordinates:17|51|50|S|31|1|47|E|type:city | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| name= }} | |||
| Country | Zimbabwe | ||
| Province | Harare | ||
| Founded | 1890 | ||
| Incorporated (city) | 1935 | ||
| Government | |||
| - Mayor | Muchadeyi Masunda | ||
| Elevation [1] | 1,490 m (4,888 ft) | ||
| Population (2006) | |||
| - City | 1,600,000 | ||
| - Urban | 2,800,111 | ||
| estimated | |||
| Time zone | CAT (UTC+2) | ||
| - Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+1) | ||
| Twin Cities | |||
| - Nottingham | United Kingdom | ||
| - Munich | Germany | ||
| - Cincinnati | United States | ||
| - Prato | Italy | ||
| - Lago | Italy | ||
| Website: http://www.hararecity.co.zw | |||
Harare (pronounced /həˈrɑreɪ/ or /həˈrɑri/, formerly Salisbury) is the capital of Zimbabwe.
A modern, well-planned city with multi-storied buildings and tree-lined avenues, Harare is Zimbabwe's largest city, as well as its administrative, commercial, manufacturing, communications, and educational centre, and serves as a distribution point for the surrounding agricultural and gold-mining area.
Numerous suburbs surround the city, retaining the names colonial administrators gave them during the 19th century, such as Warren Park 'D', Borrowdale, Mount Pleasant, Marlborough, Tynwald and Avondale.
Geography
The name Harare derives from the Shona chieftain Neharawa, who with his people occupied the area known as the Kopje (pronounced "Koppie"), near where the commercial area developed. Before independence, "Harare" was the name of the Black residential area now known as Mbare.
Harare is situated in the northeastern part of Zimbabwe in the uplands at an elevation of 1483 metres (4865 feet)
Harare has a warm temperate climate. Tts high altitude and the prevalence of a cool south-easterly airflow maintains temperatures that are rather low for the tropics. The average maximum daytime temperature in January (midsummer) is 77°F (25°C), dropping to an average maximum of around 68°F (20°C) in July. There are three main seasons - a warm, wet season from November to March/April; a cool, dry season from May to August (corresponding to the Southern Hemisphere winter); and a hot, dry season in September/October. The average annual rainfall is about 32.4 inches (825mm) in the south-west rising to 33.6 inches (855mm) on the higher land in the north-east (around Borrowdale to Glen Lorne).
The climate supports a natural vegetation of open woodland. The most common tree of the local region is the Msasa Brachystegia spiciformis that colours the landscape wine-red with its new leaves in late August. An introduced tree that contributes most to the town's atmosphere is the Jacaranda (a South American species) that produces a burst of lilac when it blooms in September.
Rivers and canals Size – land area, size comparison Environmental issues Districts
History
A Bantu civilization occupied the Zimbabwe region by the Middle Ages. Around the early 10th century, gold, ivory, and copper were traded for cloth and glass.
From circa 1250–1629, the area that is known as Zimbabwe today was ruled under the Mutapa Empire, which was renowned for its gold trade routes with Arabs. However, Portuguese settlers destroyed the trade[citation needed] and began a series of wars which left the empire in near collapse in the early 17th century.
In 1834, the Ndebele people arrived while fleeing from the Zulu leader Shaka, making the area their new empire, Matabeleland. In 1837-8, the Shona were conquered by the Ndebele, who arrived from south of the Limpopo and forced them to pay tribute and concentrate in northern Zimbabwe.
In the 1880s, the British South Africa Company, owned by English-born businessman, mining magnate, and politician Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902), arrived in the area.
In 1890, the city was founded as a fort at the spot where the British South Africa Company’s Pioneer Column, a military volunteer force of settlers organised by Cecil Rhodes, halted its march into Mashonaland.
The city was originally named Fort Salisbury after the Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, the Third Marquess of Salisbury, who was then British prime minister, and it subsequently became known simply as Salisbury.
At that time, the area was poorly drained and earliest development was on sloping ground along the left bank of a stream that became the course of a trunk road (Julius Nyerere Way). The first area to be fully drained was near the head of the stream and was named Causeway. That area became the site of the most important Government buildings, including the Senate House and the Office of the Prime Minister (renamed for the use of President Mugabe.)
In 1898, the name Southern Rhodesia was adopted. [2]
Salisbury was declared a municipality in 1897. When the railway arrived from Beira (Mozambique) in 1899, the town developed as a trading centre.
The United Kingdom annexed Southern Rhodesia from the [British] South Africa Company in 1923, and Salisbury became the capital of the British colony. It became a city in 1935, was the capital of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland from 1953 to 1963, and from then was the capital of Southern Rhodesia.
A 1961 constitution was formulated that favored whites in power. The government of Ian Smith (1919–2007) declared Rhodesia independent of Great Britain on November 11, 1965. The UK did not recognize the act and demanded more complete voting rights for the black African majority in the country (then called Rhodesia).
UN sanctions and a guerrilla uprising finally led to free elections in 1979 and independence as the Republic of Zimbabwe in 1980. Robert Mugabe (b. 1924), the nation's first prime minister, has been the country's only ruler (as president since 1987) and has dominated the country's political system since independence.
The capital city retained the name Salisbury until April 18, 1982, the second anniversary of Zimbabwean independence, when it was changed to Harare.
Mugabe's chaotic land redistribution campaign, which began in 2000, caused an exodus of white farmers, crippled the economy, and ushered in widespread shortages of basic commodities.
Ignoring international condemnation, Mugabe rigged the 2002 presidential election to ensure his reelection. The ruling ZANU-PF party used fraud and intimidation to win a two-thirds majority in the March 2005 parliamentary election, allowing it to amend the constitution at will and recreate the Senate, which had been abolished in the late 1980s.
In April 2005, Harare embarked on Operation Restore Order, ostensibly an urban rationalization program, which resulted in the destruction of the homes or businesses of 700,000 mostly poor supporters of the opposition. This caused a sharp reaction in the international community because it took place without prior warning and no advance plans were made to provide alternative housing.
This was followed by Operation Chikerema (Operation "Better Living") a year later which consisted of building concrete housing. Critics however, stated that these were inadequate citing the lack of electricity, plumbing or other infrastructure in poorly accessible areas.
Mugabe in June 2007 instituted price controls on all basic commodities causing panic buying and leaving store shelves empty for months.
Harare has been adversely affected by the political and economic crisis plaguing Zimbabwe. The elected council was replaced by a government-appointed commission for alleged inefficiency, but essential services such as rubbish collection and street repairs have rapidly worsened, and are now virtually non-existent. In May 2006, the Zimbabwean newspaper the Financial Gazette, described the city in an editorial as a "sunshine city-turned-sewage farm".[3]
Government
Zimbabwe is a parliamentary democracy in which the president, who is both the chief of state and head of government, is elected by popular vote for a five-year term, and has no term limits. The bicameral parliament consists of a Senate of 93 members, 60 of whom are elected by popular vote for a five-year term, 10 provincial governors are nominated by the president, 16 traditional chiefs elected by the Council of Chiefs, two held by the president and deputy president of the Council of Chiefs, and five appointed by the president, and a House of Assembly of 210 members all elected by popular vote for five-year terms.
Zimbabwe is divided into eight provinces and two cities with provincial status.[27] These are territorial divisions for the purposes of administrative, political and geographical demarcation. The provinces are subdivided into 59 districts and 1200 municipalities.
Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province.
Harare has been the location of several international summits such as the Eighth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (1986) and Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (1991). The latter produced the Harare Declaration, dictating the membership criteria of the Commonwealth. In 1995, Harare hosted most of the Sixth All-Africa Games, sharing the event with other Zimbabwean cities such as Bulawayo and Chitungwiza.
Economy
The government of Zimbabwe in 2008 struggled with an unsustainable fiscal deficit, an overvalued official exchange rate, hyperinflation, and bare store shelves. Its 1998-2002 involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo drained hundreds of millions of dollars from the economy. The government's land reform program, characterized by chaos and violence, has badly damaged the commercial farming sector, the traditional source of exports and foreign exchange and the provider of 400,000 jobs, turning Zimbabwe into a net importer of food products.
The European Union and the United States provide food aid on humanitarian grounds. Badly needed support from the International Monetary Fund had been suspended because of the government's arrears on past loans and the government's unwillingness to enact reforms that would stabilize the economy. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe routinely prints money to fund the budget deficit, causing the official annual inflation rate to rise from 32 percent in 1998, to 133 percent in 2004, 585 percent in 2005, passed 1000 percent in 2006, and 26,000 percent in November 2007.
Due to the unstable economic conditions and failure to control inflation, economists have suggested that the Reserve Bank be reformed
Zimbabwe's per capita GDP was estimated at $200 in 2007.
Harare is a trade centre for tobacco, maize, cotton, and citrus fruits. Manufactures include textiles, steel, and chemicals. Factories produce processed food, beverages, clothing, cigarettes, building materials, and plastics. Gold is mined in the area.
Harare is a hub of rail, road, and air transport in Zimbabwe. The public transport system of buses, run by ZUPCO crumbled in the first decade of the 21st century. Privately owned companies that operate commuter omnibuses proliferated With the advent of the fuel crisis in the country, the government introduced commuter trains in order to ease transport shortages. The National Railways of Zimbabwe, NRZ operate a daily overnight passenger train service that runs from Harare to Mutare and another one from Harare to Bulawayo. Harare International Airport serves Harare.
Demographics
It had an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area in 2006. There has been an increasing flow of Zimbabweans into South Africa and Botswana in search of better economic opportunities.
Black Africans make up 98 percent of Zimbabwe's population. Shona comprise 82 percent, Ndebele 14 percent, other two percent, mixed and Asian one percent, and white less than one percent.
English is the official language, while Shona, Sindebele (the language of the Ndebele, sometimes called Ndebele), and numerous but minor tribal dialects are spoken.
About half of Zimbabwe's population follow syncretic religions which are part Christian, part indigenous beliefs. Christians make up 25 percent, those following indigenous beliefs 24 percent, Muslim and other one percent.
Harare is the site of the University of Zimbabwe, the largest and most complete institution of higher learning in Zimbabwe, about three miles (five kilometers) north of the city. It was founded through a special relationship with the University of London and it opened its doors to its first students in 1952.
Of interest
Places of interest include the Queen Victoria Museum, which has zoological and historical exhibits, , and Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals.
Notable landmarks and institutions:
- The National Gallery of Zimbabwe, which has a collection of European paintings as well as traditional and contemporary African art.
- Mushandirapamwe Hotel, which is a hotel at Machipisa Shopping Centre in Highfield, Harare Zimbabwe. It is owned by the Tawengwa family, sons of George Tawengwa, a prominent Zimbabwean businessman who was the first black person to buy a farm in 1960.
- Rufaro Stadium, which is a multi-use stadium in Harare, used mostly for football matches, and has a capacity of 35,000 people.
- Cairns Holdings
- Data Control & Systems
- Dynamos F.C.
- Gwanzura
- 44 Harvest House
- Mbare Musika
- Net*One
- Parirenyatwa Hospital
- Sam Nujoma Street
- St. John's College, Harare
- University of Zimbabwe
- Queen Victoria Museum
- Zimbabwe Stock Exchange
- Zimbabwe grounds
- Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences
- National Sport Stadium
- Heroes Acre
- Borrowdale Race Course
- Sam Levy Village
- Eastgate
- Westgate
- Zanu Pf Headquarters
- KG6
Business Companies
- Tawacom Group Zim Ltd
- Zimbabwe Groceries
- OK Chain stores
- TM Supermarkets
- Spar Supermarkets
- Lucky Seven Stores
- Boldcut Pvt Ltd
Banks
- CBZ Holdings
- Kingdom Financial Holdings
Residents are exposed to a variety of sources for information, though almost all of their sources are controlled by the government. In the print media, there is the Herald, Financial Gazette, Independent, Standard, and Kwayedza. Since there has been an explosion of online media outlets. These include ZimOnline, ZimDaily, Guardian, NewZimbabwe, Times, Harare Tribune, Zimbabwe Metro and many others. The government controls all the electronic media, though Voice of America, Voice of the people and SW Radio Africa beam broadcasts into the country occasionally.
Image gallery
- Harare secondst.jpg
Sam Nujoma Street, view south
- Harare Africa Unity.jpg
African Unity Square (formerly Cecil Square)
- Harare Skyline.jpg
Harare Skyline
- Harare Central Station.jpg
Harare Central Station
See also
- Suburbs of Harare
- Place names in Zimbabwe
- Provinces of Zimbabwe
- Districts of Zimbabwe
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- ↑ Google Earth
- ↑ So Who Was Shaka Zulu- Really? Africa Stage
- ↑ Financial Gazette editorial of 17 May 2006 "Zimbabwe: It's Chombo's Fault" [1]
Further reading
- Horn, Nancy E. 1994. Cultivating customers: market women in Harare, Zimbabwe. Women and change in the developing world. Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN 9781555874728
- Kamete, Amin Y. 2002. Governing the poor in Harare, Zimbabwe: shifting perceptions and changing responses. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. ISBN 9789171065032
- Rakodi, Carole. 1995. Harare: inheriting a settler-colonial city, change or continuity? World cities series. Chichester: J. Wiley. ISBN 9780471949510
- Tingay, Paul, and Roger de la Harpe. 1997. Harare. London: New Holland. ISBN 9781868258901
- Yoshikuni, Tsuneo. 2007. African urban experiences in colonial Zimbabwe: a social history of Harare before 1925. Harare: Weaver Press. ISBN 9781779220547
- "Commentary - Suicidal Violence - Daily News, Harare". 2003. World Press Review. 50 (6): 46. ISSN 0195-8895
External links
- World Fact Book 2008 Zimbabwe Retrieved November 25, 2008.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica Harare Retrieved November 25, 2008.
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