With the departure of Robert Mugabe after 37 years in power, Zimbabwe is back in the news. It’s still too early to see if domestic, international and diaspora investors will pour back into the economy.  An early step in determining the market opportunities will be data collection. So, what do we know about Zimbabwe’s major consumer centers?

In the Fraym Urban Markets Index, we pinpointed Africa’s largest, wealthiest, and most networked populations. The Index uses Fraym’s proprietary data platform to estimate and rank 167 cities on the continent—or every geographic cluster with at least 300,000 people—on three dimensions: Economic activity (GDP for city’s geospatial footprint), Consumers (people living in a home with a car, motorbike, television, or refrigerator), and Connectivity (trade and air travel links).  The Index spans from Cairo, Egypt at the top to Nzérékoré in Guinea at 167^th.

Zimbabwe has three cities that make the list: Harare, Bulawayo, and Chitungwiza.

Watch this space for more analysis from Fraym of Zimbabwe’s rural communities where we’ll map poverty and vulnerability across the country.