Rhodesia (region) region fell from prominence after Northern Rhodesia became Zambia in 1964. From then until 1980, "Rhodesia" commonly referred to Southern Rhodesia alone. Since 1980 the term has not been in general use, aside from in a historical context. When whites settled what became "Southern Rhodesia" in 1890, and when the British South Africa Company was chartered to administer "North-Western Rhodesia" and "North-Eastern Rhodesia", it was not under those names, but the names of the parts—"Mashonaland", "Matabeleland", "Barotseland", and so on. The territories were initially collectively referred to as "Zambesia" (Cecil Rhodes's preferred name), "Charterland" (Leander Starr Jameson's proposal) or "the
Company rule in Rhodesia of the century, Rhodes's Company held a vast, land-locked country, bisected by the Zambezi river. It officially named this land Rhodesia in 1895, and ran it until the early 1920s. The area south of the Zambezi became Southern Rhodesia, while that to the north became North-Western and North-Eastern Rhodesia, which were joined in 1911 to form Northern Rhodesia. Within Northern Rhodesia, there was a separate Kingdom called Barotseland which later became a British protectorate alongside other territories under the British sphere of influence. Each territory was administered separately, with an administrator heading each territorial legislature. In Southern Rhodesia, which attracted