Lake Kariba was created in 1958 when the Kariba Dam impounded the Zambezi River — at the time the largest dam in the world, and still the largest man-made reservoir on the planet measured by volume (180 km³). It's 220 km long, up to 40 km wide, and holds an entire ecosystem: tigerfish, kapenta sardines, and hippo and crocodile populations dense enough that swimming is unwise.
The Zimbabwean shore stretches from the dam wall east to Kanyemba near the Mozambican border. Kariba town at the western end has the marina and most of the houseboats — multi-deck floating safari lodges that cruise gorges, anchor for sundowners, and put guests within 100 metres of grazing elephants on the shoreline. Matusadona National Park on the southern shore offers walking safaris and lion country with little-visited gorges. Bumi Hills is the boutique end — luxury tented camps with views over a peninsula bay.
Three reasons people come: houseboat trips (3–7 nights, all-inclusive sundowner cruises and tigerfishing), wildlife at Matusadona, and the dam wall itself for the engineering and the views into the gorge below. The lake is 360 km from Harare; most visitors fly to Kariba airport (KAB), 60 minutes from Harare.
