Q 01/05

What is the capital and largest city of Zimbabwe?

A) Harare

B) Bulawayo

C) Mutare

D) Gweru

Answer · why

A) Harare

It was founded in 1890 by Rhodes's Pioneer Column as a fort named after the British prime minister, and renamed in 1982.

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

Dzimba-dza-mabwe refers to the medieval stone city near Masvingo; a rival reading gives 'venerated houses'.

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

Trade began around the early 10th century and first built up Mapungubwe in the Limpopo valley; the goods coming back were cloth and glass.

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

The Great Enclosure was built in the 13th and 14th centuries and probably served as a royal residence; the site is UNESCO-listed.