Angola–Zambia border

How far did Barotseland reach?

An Anglo-Portuguese treaty of 11 June 1891 left the Barotse Kingdom in the British sphere but said its western limit, which would be the border, was to be settled by a joint commission. A temporary line along the Zambezi and the Kabompo held from 1893. In 1903 the two countries agreed to let the King of Italy decide, defining Barotseland as the land its king ruled on 11 June 1891.^[1]

Victor Emmanuel III’s award of 30 May 1905 moved the southern part of the line west from the Zambezi to the Kwando. From there the border runs up the 22nd meridian, along the 13th parallel and up the 24th meridian to the Congo. A 1915 protocol marked the northern part, adjusting the 24th-meridian stretch slightly to follow natural features.^[1]

A French phrase

The award put the southern line on “le bord oriental du lit des hautes eaux du Kwando”, the eastern edge of the river’s high-water bed. Portugal read that as the line reached in normal floods; Britain read it as the river’s upper waters at normal level, arguing that Barotse communities needed the river in the dry season.^[1]

A convention of 18 November 1954 settled it: the line follows the normal limit of the Kwando’s waters on its eastern side when the river is in flood. A joint commission then marked it with pillars and signed its report in Lisbon on 12 October 1964, twelve days before Northern Rhodesia became independent as Zambia.^[1]

“…shall follow the normal limit of the waters of the River Kwando on its Eastern side when the river is in flood.”^[1]