Q 01/05

What is the capital and largest city of Zimbabwe?

A) Harare

B) Bulawayo

C) Mutare

D) Gweru

Answer · why

A) Harare

Harare, founded in 1890 as the Pioneer Column's fort, is Zimbabwe's capital and largest city; the name adopted in 1982 comes from the Shona chief Neha...

Q 02/05

Zimbabwe's capital was known by what name until 1982?

A) Livingstone

B) Salisbury

C) Fort Victoria

D) Kimberley

Answer · why

B) Salisbury

The Pioneer Column named the fort for Lord Salisbury, the British prime minister, when it arrived in Shona territory in 1890.

Q 03/05

The name Zimbabwe is usually said to derive from a Shona phrase meaning what?

A) Land of the lion

B) Great river

C) Houses of stone

D) Place of the ancestors

Answer · why

C) Houses of stone

Houses of stone — dzimba dza mabwe in Shona — refers to the medieval walled city of Great Zimbabwe near Masvingo; a rival reading, dzimba hwe, gives '...

Q 04/05

The states that culminated in Great Zimbabwe grew rich exchanging gold, ivory and copper with merchants from where?

A) Portuguese ships on the Atlantic

B) Berber caravans across the Sahara

C) Dutch settlers at the Cape

D) Arab traders on the Indian Ocean coast

Answer · why

D) Arab traders on the Indian Ocean coast

Arab traders on the Indian Ocean coast, via Swahili ports such as Sofala, bought the plateau's gold and ivory from about the 10th century, sending bac...

Q 05/05

Great Zimbabwe's massive walls are famous for being built how?

A) Of sun-baked mud brick

B) Of dry stone, without mortar

C) Of granite blocks set in lime

D) Of timber and thatch

Answer · why

B) Of dry stone, without mortar

Of dry stone, without mortar: Great Zimbabwe's granite blocks were cut and fitted so precisely that the Great Enclosure's outer wall, up to 11 metres ...