Compared to Zimbabwe, the Katanga Plateau (Zambia and southern Congo) is actually the heartland of East African territory, but the mineral resources are somewhat specialized—copper reserves are among the world's top levels, while other mineral resources pale in comparison.
Even so, coal and iron resources in the Katanga region are still significantly stronger than those in eastern East Africa, although they are also concentrated in the area that converges with Zimbabwe. This distribution shows that most of East African kingdom's coal and iron resources naturally cluster in the Southern Africa region.
As the British said in the First World War in previous generations, the Germans' colonies were just wastelands, and in later generations, East Africa's overall development level lagged behind North Africa, West Africa, and South Africa—only somewhat stronger than Central Africa.
