City of Harare Overview

Harare is the capital of Zimbabwe, a city with an estimated population of nearly 2 million people. It has also been known for many years as the sunshine city and was once rated the cleanest city in the world. The second largest city in Zimbabwe is Bulawayo.

The sunshine city is a commercial hub for Zimbabwe. It is where the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is found and international brands of banks such as Standard Chartered Bank, Barclays Bank and Stanbic Bank. There are other local indigenous banks such as Kingdom Bank, BanABC and MBCA amongst others.

Traveling to the sunshine city is possible by road and by air. There are a number of airlines that fly to Harare. This would include Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airways, South African Airways, Air Malawi, Air Botswana and Air Zimbabwe. British Airways used to fly to Harare before abruptly pulling out. Recently it announced its intention to return to Zimbabwe in March/April 2010.

The most popular and busy route of flying into Harare is via Johannesburg, South Africa. South African Airways has daily flights into Harare in the morning, afternoon and evening. Air Zimbabwe also runs daily flight between the two cities.

Traveling to Harare from neighboring countries by road is possible via public luxury coaches that originate from Botswana, South Africa, Malawi and Zambia. Backpackers to Zimbabwe also find hitchhiking convenient. Rail travel to Harare is available from other cities within Zimbabwe but is highly unreliable due to infrastructural decay of years of Zimbabwe economic decline.

The sunshine city has many places to stay including top hotels such as Meikles Hotel, Crown Plaza Monomutapa, Rainbow Towers Hotel, Holiday Inn and others. There are numerous B&B facilities within the city many of which are close to the city's CBD. Harare Hotel reviews are available here.

The city is run and managed by the City Of Harare council mostly composed of opposition MDC councilors from Morgan Tsvangirai party. Utility supplies in Harare are still largely erratic yet better than many other cities in Zimbabwe such as Kwekwe and Gweru. However, hotel facilities have stable supplies of both water and electricity.

Harare's infrastructure shows great signs of decay due to many years of economic decline and unprecedented Zimbabwe currency inflation. Most of the city's roads are covered in pot-holes making them very dangerous and absolutely damaging to vehicles.

Other city services will include public taxes that run on a daily basis transporting workers to and from work every morning and evening respectively. Private taxes are also available in Harare to take visitors from one point to another under a private paid arrangement. Car hire services such as Avis and Europcar are also available in Harare.

In terms of crime, the city is possibly one amongst the safest cities in Africa and the world compared to Johannesburg or Nairobi. Visitors will however need to ensure they are generally safe especially during night hours as they can become easy targets to petty thieves. The general trend of crime in Zimbabwe unlike other cities is that victims are rarely physically harmed in an attack.


Places to visit whilst in the capital include Lion and Cheetah Park and the Snake Park.

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