Rhodesia

American  

[roh-dee-zhuh] / roʊˈdi ʒə /

noun

1. (asSouthern Rhodesia ) a former British colony in southern Africa: declared independence 1965; name changed to Zimbabwe 1979.

2. a historical region in southern Africa that comprised the British territories of Northern Rhodesia (nowZambia ) and Southern Rhodesia (nowZimbabwe ).

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Rhodesia British  

/ rəʊˈdiːʃə, -zɪə /

noun

1. a former name (1964–79) for Zimbabwe

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Rhodesia Cultural  

1. Former name of Zimbabwe, a nation in southeastern Africa.

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Discover More

Rhodesia was named for Cecil Rhodes, the English industrialist whose British South Africa Company colonized the region at the end of the nineteenth century. He also founded the Rhodes Scholarships for study at Oxford University.

Other Word Forms

• Rhodesian adjective

Example Sentences

Rhodes went on to found De Beers, the diamond-mining behemoth, and became so influential that Rhodesia bore his name before it became Zimbabwe.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 22, 2025

During the 1970s, Nyerere lobbied Western governments to take a stronger stance against white-minority rule in Rhodesia, later Zimbabwe, and South Africa, and backed armed groups fighting those regimes.

From BBC • Feb. 18, 2024

In the 1970s, Beijing built the Tazara Railway from landlocked Zambia to Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam port, allowing copper exports to circumvent white-minority-ruled Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa.

From Washington Times • Mar. 31, 2023

In addition, Portugal objected that it controlled the land between its colonies of Angola and Mozambique, encompassing much of what Rhodes claimed as part of Rhodesia.

From Textbooks • Dec. 14, 2022

Within a few minutes, we were all singing the song “Stimela,” a rousing anthem about a train making its way down from Southern Rhodesia.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela