History of rugby union matches between the British and Irish Lions and other countries and 1938 Lions tours, North-Western and North-Eastern Rhodesia had been merged to form the protectorate of Northern Rhodesia; the colony of Southern Rhodesia still existed. For the 1955 and 1962 tours, these two territories had been combined and, along with modern-day Malawi, made up the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In 1964 Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland were granted independence and became Zambia and Malawi respectively. Southern Rhodesia remained a colony and called itself Rhodesia (between 1964 and 1979) and Zimbabwe-Rhodesia (in 1979), though this name was not accepted by the British government who, until the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980,
Northern Rhodesia of the main railway line was reserved for European settlement and farming. In 1938, it was reported that the Native Reserves were overcrowded, while much of the land reserved for Europeans was unoccupied and unused In 1918, the Privy Council of the United Kingdom had rejected the British South Africa Company claims to unalienated land in Southern Rhodesia, and this raised questions about the company's claim to unalienated land north of the Zambezi. However, the company's claim in Northern Rhodesia was based on concessions granted rather than conquest and, although a Northern Rhodesian parliamentary Committee in 1921 recommended that these