Great Zimbabwe was a city in the south-eastern hills of the modern country of Zimbabwe, near Masvingo. It was settled from around 1000 CE, and served as the capital of the Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe from the 13th century. It is the largest stone structure in precolonial Southern Africa. Major construction on the city began in the 11th century until the 15th century, and it was abandoned in the 16th or 17th century. The edifices were erected by ancestors of the Shona people, currently located in Zimbabwe and nearby countries. The stone city spans an area of 7.22 square kilometres (2.79 mi²). Population estimates vary. Earlier estimates suggest a peak population of around 20,000 people. A recent study using archaeological, ethnographic, and historical evidence, along with statistical modeling suggests that the site's population did not exceed 10,000 people. The Zimbabwe state centred on it likely covered 50,000 km² (19,000 sq mi). It is recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The site of Great Zimbabwe is composed of the Hill Complex, the Valley Complex, and the Great Enclosure (constructed at different times), and contained area for commoner housing within the perimeter walls. There is disagreement on the functions of the complexes among scholars. Some consider them to have been residences for the royals and elites at different periods of the site, while others infer them to have had separate functions. The Great Enclosure, with its 11 m (36 ft) high dry stone walls (that is, constructed without mortar), was built during the 13th and 14th centuries, and likely served as the royal residence, with demarcated public spaces for rituals.

The first confirmed visits by Europeans were in the late 19th century, with investigations of the site starting in 1871. Great Zimbabwe and surrounding sites were looted by European antiquarians between the 1890s and 1920s. Some later studies of the monument were controversial, as the white government of Rhodesia pressured archaeologists to deny its construction by black Africans. Its African origin only became consensus by the 1950s. Great Zimbabwe has since been adopted as a national monument by the Zimbabwean government, and the modern independent state was named after it.

The word great distinguishes the site from the many smaller ruins, known as "zimbabwes", or "houses of stone", spread across the Zimbabwe Highveld. More than 400 sites have been identified across Southern Africa, such as Bumbusi in Zimbabwe and Manyikeni in Mozambique, with monumental, mortarless walls.

Zimbabwe is the Shona name of the ruins, first recorded in 1531 by Vicente Pegado, captain of the Portuguese garrison of Sofala. Pegado noted that "The natives of the country call these edifices Symbaoe, which according to their language signifies 'court'".

The name contains dzimba, the Shona term for 'houses'. There are two theories for the etymology of the name. The first proposes that the word is derived from Dzimba-dze-mabwe, translated from Shona as 'large houses of stone' (dzimba = plural of imba, 'house'; mabwe = plural of ibwe, 'stone'). A second suggests that Zimbabwe is a contracted form of dzimba-hwe, which means 'venerated houses' in the Zezuru dialect of Shona, as usually applied to the houses or graves of chiefs.

The Great Zimbabwe area was previously settled by the San, dating back 100,000 years, and, starting around 150 BCE, by Bantu-speaking peoples, who formed agricultural chiefdoms starting in the 4th century CE. Between the 4th and the 7th centuries, communities of the Gokomere or Ziwa cultures farmed the valley, and mined and worked iron, but built no stone structures. These are the earliest Iron Age settlements in the area identified from archaeological diggings, and the later Gumanye people are considered the ancestors of the Karanga (south-central Shona), who would construct Great Zimbabwe.

Construction of the stone buildings started in the 11th century and continued for over 300 years. Agriculture and cattle played a key role in developing a vital social network, and served to "enfranchise management of goods and services distributed as benefits within traditional political and social institutions", while long distance trade was crucial for the transformation of localised organisations into regional ones. The ruling dynasty used their wealth to make houses out of thick daga (earthen daub), rather than daga and poles, and built stone walls to shield themselves from public view. The aforementioned process advanced rapidly in the 13th century, and saw the construction of large dry-stone walls.