Central and Southern Africa: every state, empire and people from 3200 BCE to today
The Central and Southern Africa section of the timeline follows 127 states, empires, colonies and peoples from 3200 BCE to today, in 7 areas: Lower Congo and Angola, Congo Basin and Katanga, Great Lakes, Swahili Coast and East Africa, Zambezi and Zimbabwe Plateau, South Africa and Namibia and Madagascar and Indian Ocean Islands. Among the most significant are Western Bantu-speaking farmers, Eastern Bantu-speaking farmers, Swahili city-states, Kingdom of Kongo, Kingdom of Zimbabwe and Zulu Kingdom.
Open Central and Southern Africa on the interactive timeline
Lower Congo and Angola
- Lower Congo hunter-gatherers
- Western Bantu-speaking farmers
- Kingdom of Kongo
- Tio Kingdom (Anziku)
- Kingdom of Ndongo
- Kingdom of Matamba
- Kingdom of Loango
- Portuguese Angola
- Ovimbundu kingdoms
- Kingdom of Kasanje
- French Congo
- French Equatorial Africa
- Republic of the Congo
- Gabon
- Equatorial Guinea
- Angola
- São Tomé and Príncipe
Congo Basin and Katanga
- Central African forest foragers
- Bantu farmers of the Congo basin
- Kisalian culture
- Luba Empire
- Kuba Kingdom
- Lunda Empire
- Kingdom of Kazembe
- Yeke Kingdom (Garanganze)
- Congo Free State
- Belgian Congo
- Congo (Léopoldville)
- State of Katanga
- Central African Republic
- Zaire
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
Great Lakes
- Great Lakes hunter-gatherers
- Eastern Bantu-speaking farmers
- Urewe culture
- Ntusi and Bigo culture
- Kingdom of Buganda
- Bunyoro-Kitara
- Kingdom of Nkore (Ankole)
- Kingdom of Karagwe
- Kingdom of Rwanda
- Kingdom of Burundi
- Uganda Protectorate
- Ruanda-Urundi
- Uganda
- Rwanda
- Burundi
Swahili Coast and East Africa
- East African hunter-gatherers
- Pastoral Neolithic herders
- Coastal Bantu farmers (Kwale ware)
- Swahili city-states
- Kilwa Sultanate
- Portuguese Swahili coast
- Maasai pastoralists
- Omani East Africa
- Sultanate of Zanzibar
- German East Africa
- British Kenya
- Tanganyika Territory
- Tanzania
- Kenya
Zambezi and Zimbabwe Plateau
- Khoisan hunter-gatherers
- Iron Age farmers of the Zambezi
- Kingdom of Mapungubwe
- Kingdom of Zimbabwe
- Mutapa Empire
- Kingdom of Butua
- Maravi Confederacy
- Portuguese Mozambique
- Rozvi Empire
- Lozi Kingdom (Barotseland)
- Ndebele Kingdom (Mthwakazi)
- Gaza Empire
- Company Rhodesia
- Nyasaland
- Southern Rhodesia
- Northern Rhodesia
- Zambia
- Malawi
- Rhodesia
- Mozambique
- Zimbabwe
South Africa and Namibia
- San hunter-gatherers
- Khoekhoe herders
- Iron Age farmers of South Africa
- Sotho-Tswana chiefdoms
- Nguni chiefdoms
- Xhosa chiefdoms
- Ovambo kingdoms
- Herero pastoralists
- Pedi Kingdom
- Dutch Cape Colony
- Swazi Kingdom
- British Cape Colony
- Zulu Kingdom
- Basotho Kingdom
- Natalia Republic
- Colony of Natal
- South African Republic (Transvaal)
- Orange Free State
- Basutoland
- German South West Africa
- Bechuanaland Protectorate
- British Swaziland
- Union of South Africa
- South West Africa
- Republic of South Africa (apartheid era)
- Lesotho
- Botswana
- Eswatini
- Namibia
- South Africa
Madagascar and Indian Ocean Islands
- Pre-settlement Madagascar
- Austronesian settlers of Madagascar
- Malagasy chiefdoms and trading towns
- Comorian sultanates
- Kingdom of Imerina
- Sakalava kingdoms
- Betsimisaraka Confederation
- Isle de France (French Mauritius)
- British Mauritius
- Merina Kingdom of Madagascar
- French Madagascar
- Madagascar
- Mauritius
- Comoros
- Seychelles
Key events
- Bantu farmers reach the Great Lakes. Around this time Bantu-speaking farmers moving east along the northern edge of the rainforest reach the Great Lakes, the start of the Eastern Bantu spread that later reaches the Cape.
- Iron smelting in the Great Lakes. Furnaces of the Urewe culture around Lake Victoria are producing iron by about 500 BCE, among the earliest ironworking south of the Sahara.
- The Periplus describes Azania. A Greek merchant's guide, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, calls the East African coast Azania and names Rhapta as its southernmost market for ivory and tortoiseshell.
- Ibn Battuta visits Kilwa. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visits Mombasa and Kilwa and calls Kilwa one of the most beautiful and well-built towns in the world.
- Great Enclosure built at Great Zimbabwe. Builders raise the Great Enclosure, the largest ancient structure south of the Sahara, with mortarless granite walls up to 11 metres high.
- Diogo Cão reaches the Congo River. The Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão sails into the mouth of the Congo and opens contact with the Kingdom of Kongo.
- Kongo's king is baptised. Nzinga a Nkuwu is baptised as João I. His son Afonso I, who ruled from 1509 to 1542, made Catholicism the state religion and wrote letters to the kings of Portugal.
- Vasco da Gama on the Swahili coast. Da Gama's fleet calls at Mozambique, Mombasa and Malindi, where he hires a pilot to guide him across the Indian Ocean to Calicut.
- Portuguese sack Kilwa and Mombasa. Francisco de Almeida's fleet storms Kilwa and burns Mombasa, beginning Portuguese domination of the Swahili coast.
- Founding of Cape Town. Jan van Riebeeck lands at Table Bay to build a supply station for Dutch East India Company ships, the start of European settlement in South Africa.
- Battle of Mbwila. Portuguese forces from Luanda defeat Kongo and kill King António I, setting off decades of civil war that split the kingdom.
- Omanis take Fort Jesus. After a siege of almost three years, Omani forces capture Fort Jesus at Mombasa and end Portuguese power on the Swahili coast north of Mozambique.
- Shaka becomes Zulu king. Shaka takes power among the Zulu. The wars and migrations of the next two decades, the Mfecane or Difaqane, remade states from Natal to Lake Tanganyika.
- The Great Trek begins. Thousands of Boer families leave the Cape Colony for the interior, founding the Natalia, Orange Free State and Transvaal republics.
- Battle of Isandlwana. A Zulu army destroys a British column at Isandlwana, the worst defeat of a British force by an African army, though Britain wins the war within months.
- Berlin Conference ends. European powers meeting in Berlin set rules for claiming African territory and recognise Leopold II's Congo Free State, accelerating the Scramble for Africa.
- Witwatersrand gold rush. Gold is found on the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg grows almost overnight, and the Transvaal becomes the world's leading gold producer.
- Rinderpest sweeps southern Africa. A rinderpest epidemic moving south from the Horn of Africa kills around 90 percent of cattle in places, bringing famine to herding peoples.
- Second Boer War begins. War between Britain and the Boer republics leads to scorched-earth tactics and concentration camps where about 26,000 Boer women and children and many Black Africans die.
- Herero and Nama genocide. German forces under Lothar von Trotha crush the Herero and Nama risings, driving survivors into the Omaheke desert and into concentration camps.
- Maji Maji rebellion. Peoples of southern German East Africa rise against forced cotton growing. German scorched-earth reprisals cause famine that kills well over 100,000 people.
- Apartheid becomes law. The National Party wins the South African election and begins passing laws for racial classification, segregated areas and separate institutions.
- Congo independence and crisis. Congo becomes independent on 30 June. Within weeks the army mutinies, Katanga secedes and UN troops arrive, a defining crisis of the Cold War in Africa.
- Rwandan genocide. Over about a hundred days, Hutu extremists kill around 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu while the world fails to intervene.
- Mandela elected president. South Africa holds its first election open to all races, and Nelson Mandela becomes president after 27 years in prison and four years of negotiations.