Harare International Airport

Harare International Airport (IATA: HRE, ICAO: FVHA) is an international airport in Harare, Zimbabwe. It is the largest airport in the country and serves as the base of Air Zimbabwe. The airport is operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe.

History

Commissioned in 1956 and officially opened on 5 February 1957, Salisbury Airport cost £924,000 to build. According to the 1950 report of the Director of Civil Aviation, the city's original aerodrome, Belvedere Airport, had proved to be inadequate and had to be abandoned for the following reasons:

Harare

Harare (/həˈrɑːreɪ/; officially called Salisbury until 1982) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. Situated in the north-east of the country in the heart of historic Mashonaland, the city has an estimated population of 1,606,000 (2009), with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area (2006). Administratively, Harare is a metropolitan province, which also incorporates Chitungwiza town and Epworth. It is situated at an elevation of 1,483 metres (4,865 feet) and its climate falls into the subtropical highland category.

The city was founded in 1890 by the Pioneer Column, a small military force in the service of the British South Africa Company, and named Fort Salisbury after the British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury. Company administrators demarcated the city and ran it until Southern Rhodesia achieved responsible government in 1923. Salisbury was thereafter the seat of the Southern Rhodesian (later Rhodesian) government and, between 1953 and 1963, the capital of the Central African Federation. It retained the name Salisbury until 1982, when it was renamed Harare on the second anniversary of Zimbabwean independence.