Zulu Kingdom

The Zulu Kingdom rose in the 1810s in what is now KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Its founder, Shaka, took power in 1816 and in about a decade turned a small chiefdom into the strongest state in the region.

Shaka reorganised warfare. His soldiers used a short stabbing spear, fought in the 'buffalo horns' formation that surrounded an enemy from both sides, and were grouped into disciplined age-regiments called amabutho.

Shaka was killed in 1828, but the kingdom endured. On 22 January 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War, the Zulu army defeated a British force at Isandlwana, one of the heaviest defeats Britain suffered in a colonial war.

Britain defeated the Zulu at Ulundi later that year, broke the kingdom up and later annexed Zululand into Natal in 1897. The Zulu monarchy continues today as a traditional institution.