Kafue

Kafue is a town on the T2 road in the Lusaka Province of Zambia, on the north bank of the Kafue River from which it takes its name. It is the southern gateway to the central Zambian plateau on which Lusaka, Kabwe and the Copperbelt towns lie. The town sits at the south-eastern foot of a range of granite hills that rise 200 m and cover about 250 square kilometres, on a shelf of land just high enough to avoid the annual flood. It is strategically placed at the one spot where north-south road and rail can cross the Kafue River and squeeze between the floodplain and the escarpment, with the Kafue Railway Bridge on the Lusaka to Livingstone line at its south end. The 2010 census counted a total population of 219,000, and Kafue has more manufacturing industry than most towns outside the Copperbelt, centred on Kafue Estates.