Luanshya

Luanshya is a town in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia near Ndola, with a population of 212,864 at the 2022 census. The area lay under Chief Mushili of the Lamba people. The town was founded in the early part of the 20th century after the prospector William Collier shot a roan antelope on the banks of the Luanshya River and found an exposed seam of copper ore where its head came to rest, and the company formed to exploit the find was named Roan Antelope Copper Mines Ltd. Copper was mined there in great quantities for most of the century, but towards its end mining became increasingly uneconomic and caused a severe recession in the town. In the 1960s Luanshya was known as the Garden Town of the Copperbelt, and its name is said to mean river of antelopes.