Zimbabwe is a landlocked country in Africa, which borders South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana and Zambia. The country has a population of approximately 16,000,000 people and has sixteen official languages; with English, Shona and Ndebele the most commonly used. Prior to officially recognised independence from the United Kingdom in 1980, the country was known as "Rhodesia" but upon the landslide electoral victory of Robert Mugabe in 1980, the country was renamed "Zimbabwe". Mugabe would remain in office as Prime Minister from 1980-87, until he became President of Zimbabwe and abolished the position of Prime Minister. He remained in office for another thirty years, until being held under house arrest in November 2017 during a coup d'etat; where he anounced his resignation aged 93 on 21 November before impeachment proceedings could take place. The current and 3rd President of Zimbabwe is Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was inaugurated in Harare on 24 November 2017, and was sacked from the vice-presidency of Zimbabwe by Mugabe one week prior to the coup. It was widely speculated that Mugabe had preferred his wife Grace to succeed him as president. The coup followed years of economic mismanagment, corruption and power abuses.
Zimbabwe has experienced hyperinflation since February 2007. During the height of inflation from 2008 to 2009, it was difficult to measure Zimbabwe's hyperinflation because the government of Zimbabwe stopped filing official inflation statistics. In April 2009, Zimbabwe stopped printing its currency, and currencies from other countries were used. In mid-2015, Zimbabwe announced plans to have completely switched to the US dollar by the end of that year.
History[]
President Muntu in the 2001 episode Simpson Safari appears to bear resemble to Mugabe.
Zimbabwe is represented at the 2010 Winter Olympics.[1]
