ETHNICITIES IN ZAMBIA : THE BEMBA BY HUGO

In Zambia, there is a lot of ethnic groups, for example, there  is Tonga, Chewa, Lozi … But the more important group in Zambia is the Bemba.

In 1963, they lived in villages of 100 to 200 people and numbered 250,000 strong (21 % of the  zambians are part of this group).

The Bemba, or « BaWemba » belong to a large group of  Bantu peoples (Bantu are the speakers of Bantu languages, comprising several hundred indigenous ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa) mainly in the Northern, Luapula, Muchinga and Copperbelt Provinces of Zambia.

Bantu speaking areas in Africa

Areas where the Bemba is the more important

A few other tribes in the Northern, Luapula and Copperbelt provinces of Zambia speak languages that are similar to Bemba but are not the same (For example : Lamba, Mambwe, Bisa ...).
Bemba history is a major historical phenomenon in the development of chieftainship in a large and culturally homogeneous region of central Africa.