Monze

Monze is a prominent town in the Southern Province of Zambia, about 180 kilometres south-west of Lusaka and the administrative centre of Monze District, with a population of 268,432 at the 2022 census. It is named after Chief Monze, the spiritual leader of the Tonga people, whose palace south of the town is near the place where the annual Lwiindi thanksgiving ceremony is held. The town is urbanising rapidly along the railway line and the T1 highway and has a large open-air market. In 1898 one of the first police posts in Northern Rhodesia was set up at Fort Monze, now a national monument, and Monze Mission Hospital was established in 1964, the year of Zambia's independence. Rusangu University, run by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, and Charles Lwanga College of Education, founded by the Jesuits in 1959, are nearby.