Livingstone

Livingstone, town, extreme southern Zambia. It lies on the northern bank of the Zambezi River at the Zimbabwe border, just north of Victoria Falls.

The first European settlement in the area was upriver at the Old Drift Ferry Station in the 1890s; the town’s present site was occupied in 1905 with the completion of Victoria Falls Bridge and the railway line. Livingstone was the capital of Northern Rhodesia from 1907 to 1935 and became the country’s first municipality in 1927. Situated on the main railway system of southern Africa, it is a distribution point for agricultural products and timber. The town’s secondary industries include automobile assembly, sawmilling, blanket weaving, and the making of furniture.

Livingstone has an international airport, which has greatly facilitated tourism not only to Victoria Falls (designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1989) but also to other nearby attractions, including Lake Kariba, Livingstone Game Park, and Kafue and Hwange national parks. A small hydroelectric power station is located on Zambia’s side of Victoria Falls. The Livingstone Museum has a collection of ethnological, archaeological, and historical exhibits, including those related to the 19th-century Scottish explorer-missionary David Livingstone, for whom the town is named. Pop. (2000) 97,488; (2010 prelim.) 136,897.