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 districts. The British South Africa Company was responsible for building the Rhodesian railway system in the period of primary construction which ended in 1911, when the main line through Northern Rhodesia crossed the Congo border to reach the Katanga copper mines. Rhodes' original intention was for a railway extending across the Zambezi to Lake Tanganyika, but when little gold was found in Mashonaland, he accepted that the scheme to reach Lake Tanganyika had no economic justification. Railways built by private companies needed traffic that can pay high freight rates, such as large quantities of minerals. A line from Kimberley reached