Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozambique to the east. The capital and largest city is Harare. The second largest city is Bulawayo. A country of roughly 15 million people, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English, Shona, and Ndebele the most common. It was once referred to as the "Jewel of Africa" for its great prosperity during the early years of Robert Mugabe.Beginning in the 9th century, during its late Iron Age, the Bantu people (who would become the ethnic Shona) built the city-state of Great Zimbabwe which became one of the major African trade centres by the 11th century, controlling the gold, ivory and copper trades with the Swahili coast, which were connected to Arab and Indian states. By the mid 15th century, the city-state had been abandoned. From there, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe was established, followed by the Rozvi and Mutapa empires.

The British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes demarcated the Rhodesia region in 1890 when they conquered Mashonaland and later in 1893 Matabeleland after a fierce resistance by Matabele people known as the First Matabele War. Company rule ended in 1923 with the establishment of Southern Rhodesia as a self-governing British colony. In 1965, the white separatist minority government unilaterally declared independence as Rhodesia. The state endured international isolation and a 15-year guerrilla war with black nationalist forces; this culminated in a peace agreement that established universal enfranchisement and de jure sovereignty as Zimbabwe in April 1980. Zimbabwe then joined the Commonwealth of Nations, from which it was suspended in 2002 for breaches of international law by its government under Robert Mugabe and from which it withdrew in December 2003.

Mugabe became Prime Minister of Zimbabwe in 1980, when his ZANUPF party won the general election following the end of white minority rule; he was the President of Zimbabwe from 1987 until his resignation in 2017. Under Mugabe's authoritarian regime, the state security apparatus dominated the country and was responsible for widespread human rights violations. From 2000 to 2009 the economy experienced decline and hyperinflation before rebounding after the use of currencies other than the Zimbabwean dollar was permitted, although growth has since faltered. On 15 November 2017, in the wake of over a year of protests against his government as well as Zimbabwe's rapidly declining economy, Mugabe was placed under house arrest by the country's national army in a coup d'tat, and Mugabe resigned six days later. Emmerson Mnangagwa has since served as Zimbabwe's president.

Zimbabwe is a member of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.

The Colony of Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally known as south Zambesia until annexed by Britain at the behest of Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company, for whom the colony was named. The bounding territories were Bechuanaland (Botswana), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Moçambique (Mozambique), Transvaal Republic (including today's Limpopo, province of South Africa).

This southern region, known for its extensive gold reserves, was first purchased by the BSAC's Pioneer Column on the strength of a Mineral Concession extracted from its Matabele overlord, Lobengula, and various majority Mashona vassal chiefs in 1890. Though parts of the territory were laid claim to by the Bechuana and Portugal; its first people, the Bushmen or 'Khoisan' had possessed it from the very beginning of prehistory and had continued to inhabit some parts. Following the colony's unilateral dissolution in 1970 by the Republic of Rhodesia government, Republic of Southern Rhodesia was re-established in 1979 as the predecessor state to the Republic of Zimbabwe Rhodesia which in turn was the predecessor state of The Republic of Zimbabwe. Its only true geographical borders are the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, its other boundaries being more or less arbitrary and merging imperceptibly with the peoples and domains of earlier chiefdoms from pre-colonial times.

The British colony was established de jure in 1923, having earlier been occupied, constructed and administered by the British South Africa Company and its sub-concessionaires who were mostly British subjects. In 1953, it was merged into the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which lasted until 1963. Southern Rhodesia then remained a de jure British colony until 1980. However, the Southern Rhodesia government issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965 and established Rhodesia, an unrecognised state. In 1979, it reconstituted itself under majority rule as Zimbabwe Rhodesia, which also failed to win it international recognition. After a period of interim British control following the Lancaster House Agreement in December 1979, the country achieved internationally recognised independence as Zimbabwe in April 1980.