Rhodesia (region) Rhodesia (region) Rhodesia is a historical region in southern Africa whose formal boundaries evolved between the 1890s and 1980. Demarcated and named by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), which governed it until the 1920s, it thereafter saw administration by various authorities. It was bisected by a natural border, the Zambezi. The territory to the north of the Zambezi was officially designated Northern Rhodesia by the Company, and has been Zambia since 1964; that to the south, which the Company dubbed Southern Rhodesia, became Zimbabwe in 1980. Northern and Southern Rhodesia were sometimes informally called "the Rhodesias". The term "Rhodesia"
Northern Rhodesia and Luanshya, all on what later became known as the Copperbelt and exploration in 1895 by the British South Africa Company's celebrated American scout, Frederick Russell Burnham, who led and oversaw the massive Northern Territories (BSA) Exploration Co. expedition first established for Westerners that major copper deposits existed in Central Africa. Along the Kafue River in then Northern Rhodesia, Burnham saw many similarities to copper deposits he had worked in the United States, and he encountered natives wearing copper bracelets. Later, the British South Africa Company built towns along the river and a railway to transport the copper through Mozambique.