Transport and infrastructure in Zambia

Our listing of the primary types of transport compares the infrastructure of Zambia with the average of all countries in Africa. The traffic routes have noticeable defects in many places and are often not in particularly good condition.

In terms of the length of its rail network, Zambia ranks 69th in the world with 0.16 meters per inhabitant. In total, the rail network is 3,126 kilometers long. Freight traffic on the rails most recently totaled 297.00 million tons and kilometers traveled. Passenger traffic reached 4.19 million passenger-kilometers in 2018.

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Back to overview: Zambia

Road traffic

The network of roads and highways has a total length of 67,671 km. For each of the country's 19.47 million inhabitants, this corresponds to 3.48 meters. This puts Zambia in 136th place in the global ranking. However, it is also important to note that the country's population density is very low at around 26 inhabitants per km². In this case, disproportionately long distances generally have to be covered to reach the more remote parts of the country.

With an average of 3566 traffic fatalities per year (2013 - 2019), road traffic in Zambia is considered rather mixed. This corresponds to 20.7 accident fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 12.3 in the USA and 17.0 worldwide.

In Zambia, left-hand traffic is the rule on the roads, i.e. you drive in the left lane and overtake on the right. Oncoming traffic comes to meet you on the right side. Here you can also find an overview of all countries with left-hand traffic.

	total	per 1 mio inhabitants	per km²
	Zambia
Roadways	67,700 km	3,475.10 km	89.92 m
Railroads	3,100 km	160.53 km	4.15 m
Waterways	2,250 km	115.54 km	2.99 m
Commercial harbors	2	0.10	0.000
Airports	6	0.31	0.008

	total	per 1 mio inhabitants	per km²
	Africa
Roadways	2,997,800 km	2,151.40 km	98.86 m
Railroads	88,600 km	63.57 km	2.92 m
Waterways	68,400 km	49.09 km	2.26 m
Commercial harbors	7,905	5.67	0.000
Airports	413	0.30	0.000

Data sources used

• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)
• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)

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