Monomatapa

(noun)

A Portuguese name for the Kingdom of Mutapa, a Shona kingdom, which stretched from the Zambezi through the Limpopo rivers to the Indian Ocean in Southern Africa, in what are the modern states of Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, and parts of Namibia and Botswana, stretching well into modern Zambia. Its founders are descendants of the builders who constructed Great Zimbabwe.

Related Terms

Examples of Monomatapa in the following topics:

  • The Bantu Migration

    • Between the 13th and 15th centuries, the relatively powerful Bantu-speaking states on a scale larger than local chiefdoms began to emerge in the Great Lakes region, in the savanna south of the Central African rainforest, and on the Zambezi river where the Monomatapa kings built the famous Great Zimbabwe complex.