Where? Spread across parts of what is now Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

When? circa 1430 CE – 1760 CE

The Mutapa Empire encompassed a truly staggering portion of Southern Africa, from the Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers to the Indian Ocean coastline. Its territory was so large that if it were around today, it would stretch across parts of six Southern African nations. Legend has it, a warrior prince from the Kingdom of Zimbabwe established the Kingdom of Mutapa. Within a generation, Mutapa eclipsed the glory that was Great Zimbabwe and its surrounds. The Portuguese unwittingly became middlemen between India and the Mutapa’s smaller kingdoms in their bid to control trade in the region (which was also fueled by rumours that the biblical mines of King Solomon were held by the ruler of Mutapa). The Kingdom of Mutapa wielded such power, they acquired a subsidy from every captain who took office in Portuguese Mozambique and they imposed a 50% tax levy on all trade goods imported. Sadly, the kingdom’s decline began in the early 17th century due to factional in-fighting which gave the Portuguese an opportunity to make Mutapa a vassal state.