Namibia–Zambia border

A line to the rapids

A German–Portuguese declaration of 30 December 1886 ran the line between their spheres east from the Okavango village of Andara in a straight line to the Katima rapids on the Zambezi. The Anglo-German agreement of 1 July 1890 then gave German South West Africa a narrow corridor to the Zambezi, the Caprivi Strip, whose northern edge was already set by the 1886 line.^[1]

When the King of Italy settled the Barotse boundary in 1905, he kept the straight Katima–Andara line up to the Kwando. A joint commission marked the line between the Okavango and the Zambezi in 1930–31.^[1]

“…to the village of Andara, which is to remain in the German sphere of influence, and from thence in a straight line eastwards to the rapids of Catima, on the Zambesi.”^[1]

Dividing the Zambezi

From the rapids the border follows the Zambezi downstream. In 1931 a Northern Rhodesia–South Africa commission plotted the river’s main channel and listed which islands fell on each side, and in 1933 the two governments accepted that channel as the Caprivi Strip’s eastern boundary. A second exchange let people from Northern Rhodesia keep cutting reeds on the other side.^[1]

South Africa ran South West Africa under a League of Nations mandate from 1920. The UN ended the mandate in 1966, renamed the territory Namibia in 1968, and in 1971 the International Court of Justice advised that South Africa’s presence there was illegal. Northern Rhodesia became independent as Zambia on 24 October 1964.^[1]