Whites in Zimbabwe
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| ~100,000 worldwide | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Zimbabwe 28,732 (2012)
|
|
 South Africa
|
64,261 (2002) |
 Australia
|
12,352 (2006) |
| Languages | |
| English (majority), Afrikaans, Portuguese,Greek | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, Judaism, others | |
White Zimbabweans (also referred to as white Rhodesians or simply Rhodesians) are people from the southern African country Zimbabwe who are white. In linguistic, cultural and historical terms, these Zimbabweans of European ethnic origin are divided between the English-speaking descendants of British and Irish settlers, the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of Afrikaners from South Africa, and those descended from Greek and Portuguese settlers.
A small number of people of European ethnicity first came to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as settlers during the late 19th century. A steady immigration of white people continued for about the next 75 years. The white population of Zimbabwe reached a peak of about 296,000 in 1975, representing just over four percent of the population, but numbers then started to drop, to around 120,000 in 1999, and to no more than 50,000 in 2002, possibly much less.
The area today called Zimbabwe (known as Southern Rhodesia from 1895) was selected as a settlement colony by British South African, and Afrikaner colonists from the 1890s onwards, following the subjugation of the Matabele, (Ndebele), and Shona nations by the British South Africa Company (BSAC). The early white settlers came in search of mineral resources, finding deposits of coal, chromium, nickel, platinum, and gold. They also found some of the best farmland in Africa. The central part of Zimbabwe is a plateau which varies in altitude between 900 and 1,500 m (2,950 and 4,900 ft) above sea level. This gives the area a sub-tropical climate which is conducive to European settlement and agricultural practices.
Over 3000 white soldiers who assisted in the BSAC takeover of the country were given land grants of 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) or more, and black people living on the land became tenants. Later, Land Apportionment and Tenure Acts reserved extensive low-rainfall areas for black-only tribal-trust lands and high rainfall areas for white ownership, which gave rise to cases of black people being excluded from their own land. White settlers were attracted to Rhodesia by the availability of tracts of prime farmland that could be purchased from the state at low cost. This resulted in a major feature of the Rhodesian economy—the "white farm". The white farm was typically a large (>100 km² (>38.6 mi²)) mechanised estate, owned by a white family and employing hundreds of black people. Many white farms provided housing, schools, and clinics for black employees and their families. At the time of independence in 1980, over 40% of the country's farming land was contained within 5,000 white farms. It was claimed that these farms provided 40% of the country's GDP and up to 60% of its foreign earnings. Major export products included tobacco, beef, sugar, cotton, and maize.
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Wikipedia