800 years, drawn to scale
The kingdom took centuries. The next chapter is being written now.
Keep scrolling to travel from the hilltop capital to today. The line is drawn to scale, so watch how little of it is left.
- c. 1220
A capital on the hill
The royal family settles on the flat summit of Mapungubwe Hill, with thousands living in the valley below. Gold and ivory travel along trade routes that reach the Indian Ocean.
- c. 1300
Power moves north
The capital empties as Great Zimbabwe rises to the north, and the centre of power in the region moves with it.
- 1930s
The gold rhinoceros
Excavations on the hill bring royal graves and gold objects to wider attention, including the small gold-foil rhinoceros that became a national symbol.
- 2003
World Heritage
UNESCO inscribes the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape, where the Limpopo and Shashe rivers meet and South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe share a border.
- 2007
Returned to the hill
Human remains taken from the site are returned and reburied, with descendant communities taking part.
- 2009
A biosphere reserve
UNESCO recognises the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve, a landscape of about three million hectares that includes Mapungubwe.
- 2026
The first coal pit is dug
Inside the same biosphere reserve, a coal pit has been opened near Tshipise as part of a planned zone of coal mines and metal smelters between the Soutpansberg and the Limpopo River. Farmers, communities and conservation groups are challenging it.
As reported by Daily Maverick, October 2026 - You are here
What happens to this land is being decided now.
Who owns this land next, and whether its rivers and groundwater stay clean. Open-cast mining changes a landscape for generations.
What is at stake
Three things this landscape cannot get back once they are gone.
Heritage
The hill where a royal family lived and was buried, and the story of an African kingdom built on craft and trade.
Landscape
Sandstone ridges, ancient baobabs and the meeting of two great rivers, where three countries come together.
Wildlife
Elephant, leopard, klipspringer and the rivers and groundwater every one of them depends on.
The initiative
An African landscape. A shared future.
The Greater Mapungubwe Initiative is an independent initiative bringing together landowners, communities, conservation partners and investors to protect this landscape, and to build its future on heritage, wildlife and tourism instead of what can be dug out of the ground.
Our full site is on its way. If you want to help protect Greater Mapungubwe, we want to hear from you.
If not now, when?