The city proper has an area of Harare is a metropolitan province which also incorporates the municipalities of Chitungwiza and Epworth. Company administrators demarcated the city and ran it until Southern Rhodesia achieved responsible government in Salisbury was thereafter the seat of the Southern Rhodesian later Rhodesian government and, between and , the capital of the Central African Federation.
It retained the name Salisbury until when it was renamed Harare on the second anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence from the United Kingdom. The commercial capital of Zimbabwe it remains an important centre of commerce and government , as well as finance , real estate , manufacturing , healthcare , education , art , culture , tourism , agriculture , mining and regional affairs.
Harare has hosted multiple international conferences and events, including the All-Africa Games and the Cricket World Cup. In , Harare was ranked as a Gamma World City. It is also home to Dynamos FC , the club with the most titles in Zimbabwean football. The Pioneer Column , a military volunteer force of settlers organised by Cecil Rhodes , founded the city on 12 September as a fort. The Salisbury Polo Club was formed in At the time of the city's founding, its site and surroundings were poorly drained.
The earliest development was on sloping ground along the left bank of a stream, in an area where the Julius Nyerere Way industrial road runs today. The first area to be fully drained was near the head of the stream and was named Causeway. Causeway is now the site of many important government buildings, including the Senate House and the Office of the Prime Minister.
After the position was abolished in January , the office was renamed for the use of the President. Salisbury was the seat of the British South Africa Company administrator and became capital of the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia in In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War , Salisbury expanded rapidly, boosted by its designation as the capital of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
