Kasama, Zambia

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Kasama is the capital of the Northern Province of Zambia, situated on the central-southern African plateau at an elevation of about 1400 m. Its population, according to the 2000 census, is approximately 200,000. It grew considerably in the 1970s and 1980s after construction of the TAZARA Railway through the city, and the tarring of the Great North Road from Mpika through Kasama to Mbala. It sits at the centre of a road network which also reaches the Luapula Province in the west, Mporokoso in the north-west, Isoka in the east and Kayambi in the north-east. Consequently it is a commercial hub with banks, markets, services and an airport.

Kasama is in the heartland of the Bemba tribe whose Paramount Chief Chitimukulu has his headquarters at Mungwi about 20 km from the centre of the city.

In 1898/9 a crisis over the succession of the Chitimukulu led to Bishop Joseph 'Moto Moto' Dupont gaining the agreement of Bemba chiefs to the British colonial Administrator of North-Eastern Rhodesia, Robert Codrington taking control of the area. Codrington established a boma at Kasama and the town's central location as well as its closeness to Chitimukulu's court led to it eventually becoming the largest and dominant town of the north-eastern lobe of what became Northern Rhodesia then Zambia.

At the end of World War I, when it consisted of a handful of government offices and a dozen stores, it was evacuated by its British population of a couple of dozen in the face of a surprise raid from the north-east by German East African forces under General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. Not knowing that the armistice had occurred in Europe the day before, the Germans took the abandoned town on November 12, 1918 and continued south-west (there was no battle at Kasama since the British imperial forces were at Abercorn), agreeing a cease-fire at the Chambeshi River on November 14 when they were informed of the German surrender in Europe. For further details, see Von Lettow-Vorbeck Memorial.