Great Zimbabwe

In the 15th century the city's hold on that trade slipped. Demand for gold weakened, and branches of the royal house broke away to found states of their own; by tradition Nyatsimba Mutota led part of the people north in search of salt and founded the Mutapa state. Traders from Angoche opened a new route up the Zambezi to goldfields west of the city, and power passed to Mutapa in the north and to Khami, capital of Butua, in the west. The old city was not yet empty. João de Barros, writing from the reports of Muslim traders, said that a nobleman kept it and that some of the Monomotapa's wives always lived there. Only in the 16th or 17th century were the stone houses finally abandoned.

The later city of Masvingo lies here.