Southern Africa is the southernmost region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. Within the region are numerous territories, including the Republic of South Africa; nowadays, the simpler term South Africa is generally reserved for the country in English.

In the UN scheme of geographic regions, five countries constitute Southern Africa:

The Southern African Customs Union (SACU), created in 1969, also comprises the five countries in the UN subregion of Southern Africa.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) was established in 1980 to facilitate co-operation in the region. It includes:

The region is sometimes reckoned to include other territories:

The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania, though more commonly reckoned in Central and Eastern Africa respectively, are occasionally included in Southern Africa.

Another geographic delineation for the region is the portion of Africa south of the Cunene and Zambezi rivers – that is: South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and the southern half of Mozambique. This definition is most often used in South Africa for natural sciences and particularly in guide books such as Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa and Mammals of the Southern African Subregion. It is not used in political, economic or human geography contexts as its boundary cuts Mozambique in two.

Simon Chopper Chimbetu (23 September 1955 – 14 August 2005) was a Zimbabwean guitarist, vocalist and composer. He was the founding member his band Orchestra Dendera Kings.

Chimbetu was born in the Musengezi area of Mbire District in Mashonaland Province of Zimbabwe on 23 September 1955. But his ancestral tribal origins of the Samanyika tribe is in Manicaland,the eastern region of Zimbabwe, bordering with the neighbouring country of Mozambique. His father was a bricklayer and Simon regularly accompanied his father on his business errands. He attended the local Musengezi High School before trekking to Harare(then Salisbury) to look for employment.

Chimbetu got involved in the fledgling liberation struggle and at one point went as far as Tanzania after joining the ZANU PF movement forces training there. Although he did not go to the front, Simon provided morale through his music. He returned to Zimbabwe before 1980. Chimbetu's musical orientation is strongly influenced by his experiences as a black person in racially-polarised Rhodesia and a liberation fighter with Marxist ideals at first.