Matabeleland area has important gold deposits. Industries include gold and other mineral mines, and engineering. There has been a decline in the industries in this region as water is in short supply. Promises by the government to draw water for the region through the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project have not been carried out. The region is allegedly marginalised by the government. Around the 10th and 11th centuries the Bantu-speaking Bakalanga arrived from the south and settled in Mapungubwe on the Limpopo and Shashi river valleys. Later they moved north to Great Zimbabwe. By the 15th century, the Bakalanga had established a
Apostolic Prefecture of Zambesia Apostolic Prefecture of Zambesia The Zambesi Mission was a Catholic prefecture division in Rhodesia. The prefecture comprised all Rhodesia south of the Zambesi River, that part of Bechuanaland which is north of the Tropic of Capricorn and east of the 22nd degree of longitude, that part of Rhodesia north of the Zambesi, south of the Congo Free State, and west of the 30th degree longitude. Originally it also included a part of North-eastern Rhodesia, which was split off into the Vicariate Apostolic of Nyassa. Rhodesia was administered by the British South Africa Company from 1890 onwards. The Zambesi mission was