In contemporary Zambia, the word "Bemba" originally meant great expanse like the sea, the name the Luba descended tribe called itself after conquering a large expanse of land in what is now northern Zambia. Today the meaning has been altered to mean several meanings. It may designate people of Bemba origin, regardless of where they live, e.g. whether they live in urban areas or in the original rural Bemba area. Alternatively, it may encompass a much larger population that includes some 'eighteen different ethnic groups', who together with the Bemba form a closely related ethnolinguistic cluster of matrilineal-matrifocal agriculturalists known as the Bemba-speaking peoples of Zambia.