White people in Zambia or White Zambians are people from Zambia who are of European descent and who do not regard themselves, or are not regarded as, being part of another racial group. Many are of British ancestry and are descendants of people whom worked in the Copperbelt Province.^[1] Other whites were also being recruited into the new Zambia as expatriates by the mid-1960s such as Irish people, Italians and Eastern Europeans, as well as white Americans and white Canadians.^[2]

Background

The first Europeans to discover Zambia were the Portuguese in the late 1700s.^[3]

In the 1960s, White Zambians tended to favour white-minority rule in Rhodesia and the apartheid system in South Africa, although small numbers prevented them from establishing a similar form of government in Zambia. At the Copperbelt mines, 6,500 expatriate workers held South African citizenship. White Zambians made up the second-largest group of immigrants moving to South Africa by 1967, fearful of the changing political climate in Zambia.^[4] The migration of White Zambians to South Africa did not stop until the late 1970s, by which point there were only about 10,000 Whites left in Zambia who held Zambian citizenship.^{[citation needed]}

Between 1964 and 1972, white Zambians were disproportionately represented in the officer corps of the Zambian Defence Force.^[5] Upon independence, most of the senior officer corps, including the chief of staff of the Zambian Army, were White Zambians.^[5] By 1972, sufficient numbers of qualified black Zambian personnel had been trained to replace them, and many of the white senior officers retired.^[6] For a number of years afterwards, white Zambians were explicitly barred from enlisting in the national military and received a blanket exemption from conscription.^[6]

In 1966, Over half the whites lived on the Copperbelt, 18% lived in Lusaka, and some 95% lived in all near the line of rail from the Copperbelt to the Victoria Falls.^[7]

Modern day

In 2014, Zambia had a White population of European origin which numbered approximately 40,000.^[8] Since independence, the community has never exceeded 1.1% of Zambia's population. Many long-term residents had voluntarily retained South African or British nationality. However, only about 40,000 hold Zambian citizenship. Guy Scott, a White Zambian citizen and former Vice President, became Acting President of Zambia after the unexpected death of President Michael Sata.^[9] This made him the first head of state of European White descent in Africa since F. W. de Klerk in 1989, and the first-ever under a democratically elected government.^{[citation needed]}

Population chart