Harare small military force of the British South Africa Company, and named Fort Salisbury after the British prime minister Lord Salisbury. Company administrators demarcated the city and ran it until Southern Rhodesia achieved responsible government in 1923. Salisbury was thereafter the seat of the Southern Rhodesian (later Rhodesian) government and, between 1953 and 1963, the capital of the Central African Federation. It retained the name Salisbury until 1982, when it was renamed Harare on the second anniversary of Zimbabwean independence. Harare is Zimbabwe's leading political, financial, commercial, and communications centre, as well as a trade centre for tobacco, maize, cotton, and
Avondale, Harare Avondale, Harare Avondale is a suburb of Harare, Zimbabwe, located about north of Harare city centre. It is the earliest suburb established in Harare, having been laid out in 1903. Prior to becoming a suburb Avondale was a dairy farm and was named after Avondale, County Wicklow, Ireland the home of the 19th-century Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell. Avondale was incorporated into Harare Municipality in 1934. The first official marriage ceremony in Zimbabwe took place on Avondale farm in 1894 when the Count de la Panouse was married to Fanny Pearson (Countess Billie) by Lt Col. Marshall Hole, the Chief