SouthWestern Region
The falls generate mists that can be spotted from more than a dozen miles (20 kilometers) away. Famed Scottish explorer David Livingstone dubbed this waterfall Victoria Falls; its older, Kololo name, Mosi-oa Tunya, means “the smoke that thunders.” The mists also sustain a rain forest-like ecosystem adjacent to the falls and on the opposite cliff that faces them like a dried-up mirror image, thick with mahogany, fig, palm, and other species of vegetation. The national border between Zambia and Zimbabwe lays midstream, and national parks of both nations exist on either side of the Zambezi. The gorges and cliffs below the falls in these parks are prime territory for raptors, including falcons and black eagles. Stone artifacts from the hominine HOMO HABILIS have been identified near the falls and show that early humans may have lived here two million years ago. More “modern” tools also evidence far more recent—50,000 years ago—Middle Stone Age settlements. Today several hundred thousand visitors from around the world trek to the falls each year; several hotels, restaurants, campgrounds, and other tourist businesses cater to them.
Victoria Falls/Mosi-oa-Tunya World Heritage Site
The southwest region welcomes you to the Mosi-oa-tunya/Victoria Falls UNESCO’s World Heritage site as well as the Seventh TNatural Wonder of the world. The Livingstone City, being the first Capital City of Zambia and currently the tourist Capital, the region boasts of over 500 historic buildings and a Railway Museums keeping the earliest steam locomotives in the sub region. With only two Provinces, that is Southern and Western Province, the Southwest region hosts the Lwiindi and Kuomboka Ceremonies. The two traditional Ceremonies gets you acquainted with local roots to feel and taste the most indigenous traditions of the country. INTRODUCTION 123 Victoria Falls/Mosi-oa-Tunya Falls World Heritage Site (Toka/Tonga: the Smoke that Thunders) is the largest curtain of falling water in the World found on the Zambezi River at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. This waterfall is among the most impressive to be found anywhere in the world. This grandiose waterfall is among the biggest, and most awe-inspiring, on the planet. The Zambezi River is more than 1.25 miles (2 kilometers) wide when it cascades over the lip of a large basalt plateau and plunges as much as 354 feet (108 meters). The flow has been slicing slowly through this plateau for some two million years. During this time the river has slowly retreated and the remnants of earlier, ancient falls can be seen in the gorges downstream from the current cataract.
Muzandu Rock Engraving Site
The Muzandu Rock Engravings Site is located in Kazungula District in Southern Province. The site lies at latitude 17°29′ 58” and Longitude 025° 45′ 40” (UTM 35 368465, 8064776) and it is about 66km from Livingstone Town in the chiefdom of Chief Musokotwane. The site is 31km west from the Livingstone/Lusaka road off Chief-Musokotwane’s Palace road junction. Rock Engravings at the site include numerous geometric or schematic designs. The designs include narrow, short and oblong grooves, wide, long and oblong grooves, mixed short, wide and narrow grooves and circular cup like depressions (designs similar to those used for playing the mancala, nsolo or mulabalaba game), set of circular designs joined with lines. Others include branched grooves, narrow and oblong grooves, mixed narrow, short and long oblong grooves and meandering lines.
Mulobezi Open Air Railway Museum
This Site is protected under CAP 173 of the laws of Zambia. It is an historic Site of industrial revolution in Zambia. The Site was a Sawmills Plant which was in operation from 1911 to1990s. The Site was declared a National Monument in 2009 to preserve and present outstanding Rolling Stock among the first to reach the African Continent. The Rolling Stock was used to transport timber from the forest to the Sawmills Plant. The site gives a historic perspective in the exploitation of one of Zambia’s rich natural resources- Zambia’s Teak wood. Along with the Railway Museum in Livingstone, this Site and the Railway line give a complete History of the construction of the railways to the commercial and industrial developments of Zambia.
Barotse Cultural Landscape
The Barotse Cultural Landscape is a vast expanse of open land in Western Province, with a gently undulating topography incised with a network of canals that are denuded with the waters of the Zambezi when it bursts its banks at the height of the rainy season from October to May. The Flood plains are one of Africa’s great wetlands and are designated as a Ramsar site on the basis of being of high conservation value. The area of nominated property is 7966 sq kilometres. The Landscape is an exceptional example of a landscape designed and created intentionally by man, an organically evolved, and associative cultural landscape because of its system of mounds, royal graves, canals, royal palaces and the transhumance. This landscape is characterized by the intense transformation of the natural environment, premised on the construction of mounds for homesteads and royals and canals for transportation, land drainage, flood control, and agricultural activities all achieved due to intelligent traditional management systems.
The landscape and its associated eloquent and often mystical ceremonies that surround the Litungaship, such as the Kuomboka and Kufuluhela Ceremonies are an extraordinary reflection of a positive communal response to forces of nature which have persisted over time, reflecting the emergence, innovation and development of an outstanding living tradition over centuries.
The tradition of transhumance by the Litunga between the two capitals of the landscape, Lealui and Limulunga, is a pinnacle of the cultural symbolism through which the Barotse Plains Cultural Landscape expresses the community’s physical and spiritual aspirations
. It is for the mentioned significance that the Barotse Floods Cultural Landscape has been proposed to for inscription on the World Heritage List under the UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention. For the Nomination to succeed, it has to be established that the Barotse Plains Cultural Landscape demonstrates the Outstanding Universal Value under any of the prescribed Criteria set under the Convention.
