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"
Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia Rhodesia" in 1974. The national anthem lost its legal status in December 1979, when the UK took interim control of the country pending its internationally recognised independence as Zimbabwe five months later. Rhodesia's use of the well-known Beethoven tune has since caused the playing of "Ode to Joy" to be controversial in modern-day Zimbabwe. A dispute over the terms for the granting of full statehood to the self-governing colony of Rhodesia led its predominantly white minority government, headed by Prime Minister Ian Smith, to unilaterally declare independence from the UK on 11 November 1965. As Whitehall had been insisting on