Zambia Provinces

Zambia is a landlocked plateau in the middle of southern Africa, and a round there is usually decided by which river or which road you are on. The province is the first tier of that picture, and there are ten of them.

The quiz: Name to place, on the map
Grouped by: Four parts of the country, an unofficial cut
In the game: 10 provinces

Start

What you are looking at

The ten provinces of Zambia, as they have stood since Muchinga was cut out of the Northern and Eastern provinces in 2011. Most are named for a direction: Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western, North-Western and Central. The other four are named for a place or a landmark: Lusaka around the capital, the Copperbelt on the Congolese border, Luapula after its river, and Muchinga after the escarpment.

The two biggest are Western and North-Western, which together fill the west of the country, and Western is the one with the Zambezi floodplain. Lusaka is the smallest, a compact province around the capital, and the Copperbelt is the next smallest, a block of mining towns on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Southern runs along the Zambezi and Lake Kariba, the border with Zimbabwe.

The groups are not an official classification. Zambia has no tier between the province and the country, so the quiz cuts the ten into the north, the centre, the west, and the south and east, to let you drill the map a piece at a time. The provinces are the Zambia Districts grouped, so the borders of the two maps match exactly.

How to place one

Start with Lusaka and the Copperbelt. They are the two small provinces in the middle of the country, and almost everything else is measured from them.
Take the west as two big pieces. North-Western and Western fill the whole side of the map, with North-Western on top.
Run the north as a row. Luapula, Northern and Muchinga go from the Congolese border in the north west to the Malawian border in the east.
Finish along the south. Southern is the long province on the Zimbabwean border, and Eastern is the one that reaches Malawi and Mozambique.

Every province, by group

North3 provinces: Luapula, Muchinga, Northern
Centre3 provinces: Central, Copperbelt, Lusaka
West2 provinces: North-Western, Western
South and East2 provinces: Eastern, Southern

Worked examples

Western

The biggest of them

Western is the largest province, a wide run of sand and floodplain along the Angolan border. The Zambezi runs through it, and the floodplain around Mongu is the home of the Lozi people.

Lusaka

The one around the capital

Lusaka is the smallest province, made up of the capital and the districts around it. It is a province of the plateau, with Southern and Central on its sides and the Zambezi on its southern border with Zimbabwe.

Muchinga

The one that is new

Muchinga is the youngest province, created in 2011 from parts of Northern and Eastern. Older maps show nine provinces and no Muchinga, with Northern reaching all the way to the Malawian border.

Frequently asked questions

How many provinces does Zambia have?

Ten. Muchinga was added in 2011, so a map from before then shows nine.

Why are the groups not official?

Zambia has no administrative tier between the provinces and the country, so the quiz groups the ten into four parts of the map by position.

What is below the province?

The districts, which number 116. They are their own quiz.

The tier below this one is Zambia Districts. For another country at this level, see Rwanda Provinces.

Sources

geoBoundaries, Zambia ADM2 and ADM1, the boundaries; the provinces are the districts dissolved, so the two maps share every border
Provinces of Zambia, the ten provinces and the districts in each

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