Northwest Province (Zambia)
| North-Western Province Northwest Province
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| Basic data | |
| Country | Zambia |
| Capital | Solwezi |
| surface | 125,826 km² |
| Residents | 727,044 (2010) |
| density | 5.8 inhabitants per km² |
| ISO 3166-2 | ZM-06 |
| Website | www.nws.gov.zm (English) |
Coordinates: 13 ° 0 ′ S , 25 ° 0 ′ E
The North West Frontier Province ( English North-Western Province ) of the Republic of Zambia is one of the ten provinces of the country.
With an area of 125,826 km² and 727,044 inhabitants (as of 2010), i.e. 5.77 people per square kilometer, the north-western province is one of the most sparsely populated provinces of Zambia and also the one with the least developed roads. 87% of the people live as subsistence farmers. Income from money is rare here. The capital of the Northwest Province is Solwezi .
The numerous rivers make a good network of paths impossible because of the lack of bridges. Their strongly fluctuating water levels, in turn, only permit shipping to a limited extent. A new railway line from Solwezi west to the Angolan border with the Benguela Railway could further develop the north of the province. With the exception of the M8 from Solwezi to Kasempa, almost all of the roads in the north-west province are unpaved, from Kasempa to Mwinilunga they are well-tended gravel roads and, moreover, only rarely smoothed with a road planer. This makes market access very difficult for farmers and keeps modernization at bay.
The north-western province is characterized by the three mighty rivers Zambezi , Kafue and Kabompo . There are huge seasonal flood plains, wide grass steppes, impassable Kalahari sands and endless miombo forests . The climate is cool and dry in the dry season from May to July, 0–10 ° C at night and 15–25 ° C during the day. August to November it gets warmer to 30 ° C and the air becomes humid and oppressive until the rainy season begins around November. In the rainy season from December to April it is warm and humid, it rains almost every day.
The north-west province comprises very different climatic zones. They range from the rainy north with forests to the arid, sandy south. The north of the province is the headwaters of the Zambezi. Its floodplains and those of its numerous tributaries allow intensive cattle breeding and rice cultivation far into the south. The latter needs to be developed and expanded considerably.
The north-west province is not a poor province, but a comparatively isolated one, as the neighboring Angolan province of Moxico is even sparsely populated and to the north the Democratic Republic of the Congo also only has to offer the so-called "hungry country" with just as few people. Nevertheless, significant economic impulses come from there. In the domestic market, the only remaining sales area is the Copperbelt , which sets its own conditions through its mining as a currency-earning region and thus determines prices. These, in turn, are eminently political, as the prices for food determine the political stability of the country as a whole. This severely limits the willingness to perform in the north-west province - as in many other provinces, which are not massively funded with investments and almost all development aid projects like the central province as the breadbasket of the country.
A curiosity in this province are the numerous lynchings "for witchcraft", the real context of which is not illuminated in reports. It is noticeable that very old people in particular fall victim to them, which points to a dramatic undersupply of food in the province and oppressive poverty. A similar phenomenon can be noted in Kaputa , a very poor and undeveloped district in the Northern Province , where the state is de facto non-existent and subsistence without money income is normal.
