Kitwe

Kitwe was founded in 1936 in north-central Zambia as the railway was being built by Cecil Rhodes' company. It was first established as an adjunct, non-mining-related but supportive part of an expanding copper-mining centre at Nkana. The expanding copper mines at Nkana made it the dominant centre in the region and Kitwe started building up its size and significance over the years, finally surpassing Nkana as the main centre. The Rhodesia Railways main line reached the town in 1937, providing passenger services as far south as Bulawayo in today's Zimbabwe, with connections to Cape Town in today's South Africa. A branch line was created from Ndola into DR Congo, and from there eventually linked to the Benguela Railway to the Atlantic port of Lobito in Angola, which used to take some of Zambia's copper exports. …

According to the Kitwe City Council, Kitwe accounted for 24% of the population on the Copperbelt province as of 2019. The United Nations World Population Prospects estimated that the current metro area population of Kitwe in 2021 stood at 710,000 while the Zambia Statistics Agency had shown a higher figure of 738,320 as of 2019. The city hosts well over one quarter of the population of the Copperbelt province. The majority of the population of Kitwe, about 98.5%, are Christians but there are some minority groups such as Muslims and Hindus. There are also some Sikhs, Jains and Jews.