Zimbabwe

AfricaCapital city: HarareCapital metro: HararePresident: Emmerson Mnangagwa
2026 population
17.1M
Rank #76 globally
Area
391k km² (151k sq mi)
Metros tracked
6
28% of population in metros
Composite score
6.7
Rank #116 globally

population: Official projection (1 Jul 2025) · indicators as of 2026-09-05 · 6 metros tracked

🗺️ Geography6 metros

Zimbabwe metro footprint, shaded by composite tier.

Loading map…
6 polygons

Hover for rank, click to open the metro page. Boundaries derived from Overture Maps administrative divisions; metros without source coverage are omitted.

🏙️ 6 tracked metros
6 metros
🗂️ Administrative subdivisions

10 entries listed under Zimbabwe across 2 types. Click any to see its metros and footprint.

10 total

Cities (1)

📋 At a glance
Official languages
Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Northern Ndebele, Nambya +11 more
Currency
Euro (€)
Legislature
Parliament of Zimbabwe
Demonym
Zimbabweans
Time zone
UTC+02:00
Driving side
Left
Calling code
+263
Internet TLD
.zw
ISO 3166
ZW
Established
1980
Highest point
Mount Nyangani (2,592 m (8,504 ft))
National anthem
National Anthem of Zimbabwe

Facts via Wikidata.

💹 Economy and developmentLower middle income
Human Dev. Index
#151 / 191
0.598
UNDP · 2023
GDP
#94 / 193
$51.2B
World Bank · 2025
GDP per capita
#143 / 193
$3.0k
World Bank · 2025
GDP/capita (PPP)
#145 / 190
$6.5k
World Bank · 2025
GNI/capita (Atlas)
#146 / 192
$2.7k
World Bank · 2025
Life expectancy
#178 / 194
63.1 yrs
World Bank · 2024
Median age
17.8 yrs
UN WPP · 2023
Urban population
#150 / 194
40%
World Bank · 2025
Pop. growth
1.9%
World Bank · 2025
Pop. density
#141 / 193
42/km²
World Bank · 2023
Foreign-born
#121 / 193
2.6%
World Bank · 2024
Rule of law
#142 / 175
0.18
V-Dem · 2025
Gini index
#159 / 166
50.3
World Bank · 2019
Internet users
#152 / 193
42%
World Bank · 2024
Inflation
#182 / 185
104.7%
World Bank · 2022
CO₂ per capita
#50 / 192
0.8 t
Global Carbon Budget · 2024
Renewable electricity
#59 / 186
57%
Ember · 2024

Ranks are among sovereign countries with data; ★ marks a top-5% finish. Sources: World Bank Open Data and Our World in Data (UNDP, UN WPP, V-Dem, Global Carbon Budget, Ember, Energy Institute; CC BY 4.0). Each card credits its originating body. Renewable share is of electricity generation, not of primary energy. Each figure is the most recent year available.

Alliances & Organisations3 full memberships

Political & Economic

Regional

Subregional

Full memberDashed border = Candidate / ApplicantItalic = Dialogue / Observer

🏛️ Leadership History5 leaders · click to expand

marks a leader associated with atrocities or defiance of law, systemic subversion of democratic institutions, or a criminal conviction. Convictions arising from political persecution, and annulled convictions, are excluded. denotes a monarch. These are editorial designations, applied per entry rather than derived automatically.

Emmerson Mnangagwa✦ Current

2017Present

President

Tenure: 8y 7m

Phelekezela Mphoko

20172017

Acting President

Tenure: 0y 0m

Robert Mugabe

19872017

President

Tenure: 29y 10m

Robert Mugabe

19801987

Prime Minister

Tenure: 7y 8m

Canaan Banana

19801987

President

Tenure: 7y 8m
📈 Power over timeThe Power Atlas →
Today
Minor#110 · 0.1%
3%5%8%10%2000
Power (headline share)Latent (material mass)Recognised (standing)
Zimbabwe · share of world power, 1965–2026

The powerline is the headline share of world power, running from the state’s first ranked year (benchmark estimates with wide error bars before 1816). Latent power is material mass a state could mobilise (population, manpower, heavy industry). Recognised power is what the system actually treats it as (military spending, productive economy, reach, and status such as a Security Council seat or nuclear arsenal). When latent runs above recognised, a power is rising or under-rated; when recognised runs higher, it is punching above its weight or coasting on prestige. Material sub-indices run 1816 through 2016.

⚔️ Conflicts since 19451 interstate war · click to expand

Bold = principal belligerent. Source: Wikipedia, “List of interstate wars since 1945.”

👥 Population over time
Population 2023
16.3m
#74 in the world
Since 1800
15×
from 1.1m
Peak
2023
at its largest now
Share of world
0.20%
0.11% in 1800
4.3m8.6m13.0m17.3m18001850190019502000
Zimbabwe · people, 1800–2023 · dashed to 2026 is projected

Our World in Data population (CC BY): UN WPP 2024 from 1950, Gapminder v7 1800-1949, HYDE 3.3 earlier; today's borders. Figures above are as of 2023, the last year that is estimated rather than forecast. The dashed tail to 2026 is a UN WPP medium-variant projection. It is drawn because the line should reach the present, and drawn differently because it has not happened yet: no rank, peak or share on this page uses it. Before 1950 the series is reconstruction rather than contemporaneous statistics, which is worth knowing when a country’s peak sits back there. The current population shown elsewhere on this page comes from the workbook and is unchanged by this. Note that people and share of world can move in opposite directions. A country can grow steadily and still become a smaller part of humanity, which is what happened to almost every rich country after 1960.

👥 To 2100

The UN’s probabilistic projection for Zimbabwe: the median with its 80% and 95% bands, the UN’s own high, low and zero-migration scenarios beside it. Not this site’s model; the site reads it and says what it implies.

Peak on the median
after 2100
still growing at 2100
2050
25.9m
95% band 21.1m to 31.8m
2100
37.2m
95% band 20.9m to 70.2m
2100 against 2025
2.19×
median still rising in 2100
18.4m36.9m55.3m73.7m1950197520002025205020752100

Tap or drag across the chart to read any year: the estimate to 2023, then the UN median, its bands and the scenarios.

estimateUN median80% and 95% bandshigh and low fertilityzero migration

What drives it

Births, deaths and net migration on the UN medium path, with fertility, life expectancy and median age, every decade from 1950.

1950
140k born · 47k died · -5k net migration
TFR 7.04 · life expectancy 49.4 · median age 17.4
1960
181k born · 54k died · -8k net migration
TFR 7.19 · life expectancy 53.5 · median age 15.3
1970
238k born · 59k died · -24k net migration
TFR 6.98 · life expectancy 57.8 · median age 14.7
1980
316k born · 75k died · +391k net migration
TFR 6.52 · life expectancy 59.1 · median age 14.6
1990
360k born · 95k died · +5k net migration
TFR 4.88 · life expectancy 58.3 · median age 15.2
2000
430k born · 193k died · -165k net migration
TFR 4.01 · life expectancy 46.0 · median age 16.7
2010
506k born · 170k died · -109k net migration
TFR 4.04 · life expectancy 51.9 · median age 17.3
2020
481k born · 126k died · -89k net migration
TFR 3.75 · life expectancy 61.5 · median age 17.4
Show all 16 decades
2030
533k born · 130k died · -61k net migration
TFR 3.38 · life expectancy 64.7 · median age 19.2
2040
575k born · 143k died · -61k net migration
TFR 2.99 · life expectancy 67.0 · median age 21.6
2050
577k born · 165k died · -63k net migration
TFR 2.69 · life expectancy 69.1 · median age 23.6
2060
577k born · 199k died · -76k net migration
TFR 2.46 · life expectancy 70.8 · median age 25.9
2070
572k born · 233k died · -77k net migration
TFR 2.28 · life expectancy 72.5 · median age 28.5
2080
552k born · 269k died · -70k net migration
TFR 2.15 · life expectancy 74.0 · median age 31.1
2090
525k born · 316k died · -68k net migration
TFR 2.05 · life expectancy 75.6 · median age 33.5
2100
500k born · 352k died · -78k net migration
TFR 1.98 · life expectancy 77.2 · median age 35.7

Every country to 2100 →

Source: United Nations, DESA, Population Division. World Population Prospects 2024. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 IGO. Estimates to 2023; projections 2024 to 2100, medium variant and probabilistic intervals. The UN revises every two years; this is the WPP 2024 revision.

💰 Billionaires1 · $2.1B combined · click to expand
TelecomTelecom

Source: Forbes real-time billionaires (via the rtb-api project). Net worth as of the latest monthly snapshot.

🏆 National Teams

Zimbabwe on the international stage. Click a card for the full record.