Harare was called Salisbury until independence's second anniversary
On a subtropical highland plateau nearly 1,500 metres up, Zimbabwe's largest city counts about 1.85 million people inside its limits and far more across its metro. Founded as Fort Salisbury in 1890, it only took the Shona-rooted name Harare on 18 April 1982—two years after independence.
Harare sits in north-eastern Mashonaland, covering 982.3 square kilometres at 1,483 metres above sea level. The 2022 census put the city proper at 1,849,600; the metropolitan province that folds in Chitungwiza, Epworth and Ruwa was estimated near 2.49 million, with later figures placing the metro area above 2.5 million. Roughly nine in ten residents are Shona-speaking, with Ndebele, Kalanga and white Zimbabwean communities also present.
The Pioneer Column of the British South Africa Company planted a fort on 12 September 1890 and named it for Lord Salisbury, then Britain's prime minister. Company rule gave way to Southern Rhodesia's capital in 1923; from 1953 to 1963 the city also headed the Central African Federation. After internationally recognized independence on 18 April 1980, the state renamed the capital Harare on the second anniversary, drawing on Chief Neharawa—nicknamed "he who does not sleep"—and the nearby Harare Kopje. Causeway, once swampy ground, now holds major government offices; parliament later shifted to Mount Hampden's New Parliament Building in April 2022.
As commercial capital, Harare concentrates finance, manufacturing, mining links, education and culture; it hosted the WHO's African headquarters until 2006, the 1995 All-Africa Games, and Cricket World Cup matches in 2003. The 1991 Commonwealth summit produced the Harare Declaration on membership rules. Dynamos FC is the country's most decorated football club. International rankings have swung sharply—Gamma world-city status in 2018 and again in 2020, yet near the bottom of livability polls around 2009–2011—while post-2000 sprawl pushed growth into Borrowdale, Mount Pleasant Heights and fringe towns even as other Zimbabwean cities stagnated.
Source: Harare
