Lusaka Province

Lusaka exists because the railway existed—the British South Africa Company built a siding here in 1905, and the settlement that grew around it eventually displaced Livingstone as Zambia's capital in 1935. The move made administrative sense: Lusaka sat closer to the Copperbelt that generated colonial wealth, and the central plateau location provided cooler temperatures than the malarial Zambezi valley. Today, Lusaka Province contains just 1.7% of Zambia's land area but generates over a third of national GDP and houses 3.5 million people—making it the fastest-growing city in the Southern African Development Community through the 2000s. This metabolic concentration creates the classic primate city dynamic: opportunity, services, and investment flow to Lusaka while surrounding provinces drain toward it. The city functions as Zambia's service economy hub: government, finance, retail, and the growing tech sector cluster here. Poverty remains pervasive—31.9% of urban Zambians live below the poverty line, but that's far lower than the 78.8% rural rate. The contrast fuels continued migration. May 2025's African Continental Free Trade Area Digital Trade Forum held in Lusaka signaled the city's ambition as a continental business hub, though infrastructure struggles to match that aspiration. Traffic congestion, informal settlements, and unreliable power supply constrain growth. The $3 billion debt restructuring completed in March 2024 theoretically frees resources for infrastructure investment, but whether benefits reach Lusaka's growing population or merely service international creditors remains the defining question. By 2026, Lusaka will likely continue absorbing Zambia's rural exodus while straining to provide the services that draw migrants in the first place.