Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers and are further separated from Midlands by the Shangani River in central Zimbabwe. The region is named after its inhabitants, the Ndebele people who were called "Amatabele" (people with long shields – Mzilikazi 's group of people who were escaping the Mfecani wars). Other ethnic groups who inhabit parts of Matabeleland include the Tonga, Bakalanga, Venda, Nambya, Khoisan, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, and Tsonga.

The capital and largest city is Bulawayo, other notable towns are Plumtree, Victoria Falls, Beitbridge, Lupane, Esigodini, Hwange Gwanda and Maphisa. The land is fertile but semi arid. This area has coal and gold deposits. Industries include gold and other mineral mines, and engineering. There has been a decline in the industries in this region as water is in short supply due to scarce rainfall. Promises by the government to draw water for the region through the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project have not been carried out, continuing water shortages.

Around the 10th and 11th centuries, the Bantu-speaking Bakalanga/vakaranga arrived from the south and settled in Mapungubwe on the Limpopo and Shashi river valleys. Later they moved north to Great Zimbabwe. By the 15th century, the Bakalanga/vakaranga had established a strong empire at Khami under a powerful ruler called Dlembeu. This empire was split by the end of the 15th century and were later conquered by the Nguni people.

In the late 1830s, Mzilikazi Khumalo, led a group of Nguni and other ethnic groups from present-day South Africa into the Rozvi Empire of the Bakalanga. Many of the Bakalanga people were incorporated to create a large state called Ndebele Kingdom. Mzilikazi, a former general under Shaka, organised this ethnically diverse nation into a militaristic system of regimental towns and established his capital at Bulawayo ("the place of killing"). Mzilikazi was a statesman of considerable stature, able to weld the many conquered tribes into a strong, centralised kingdom.

In 1840, Matabeleland was founded.

In 1852, the Boer government in the Transvaal made a treaty with Mzilikazi. Gold was discovered in northern Ndebele in 1867. The area, settled by the Zezuru people, remnants of the Mwenemutapa kingdom, while the European powers increasingly became interested in the region. Mzilikazi died on 9 September 1868, near Bulawayo. His son, Lobengula, succeeded him as king. In exchange for wealth and arms, Lobengula granted several concessions to the British, but it was not until twenty years later that the most prominent of these, the 1888 Rudd Concession gave Cecil Rhodes exclusive mineral rights in much of the lands east of Lobengula's main territory. Gold was already known to exist, but with the Rudd concession, Rhodes was able in 1889 to obtain a royal charter to form the British South Africa Company.

In 1890, Rhodes sent a group of settlers, known as the Pioneer Column, into Mashonaland where they founded Fort Salisbury (now Harare). In 1891 an Order-in-Council declared Matabeleland and Mashonaland British protectorates. Rhodes had a vested interest in the continued expansion of white settlements in the region, so now with the cover of a legal mandate, he used a brutal attack by Ndebele against the Shona near Fort Victoria (now Masvingo) in 1893 as a pretext for attacking the kingdom of Lobengula. Also in 1893, a concession awarded to Sir John Swinburne was detached from Matabeleland to be administered by the British Resident Commissioner of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, to which the territory was formally annexed in 1911 and it remains part of modern Botswana, known as the Tati Concessions Land.

The first decisive battle was fought on 1 November 1893, when a laager was attacked on open ground near the Bembesi River by Imbizo and Ingubo regiments. The laager consisted of 670 British soldiers, 400 of whom were mounted along with a small force of native allies, and fought off the Imbizo and Ingubo forces, which were considered by Sir John Willoughby to number 1,700 warriors in all. The laager had with it small artillery: 5 Maxim guns, 2 seven-pounders, 1 Gardner gun, and 1 Hotchkiss gun. The Maxim machine guns took center stage and decimated the native force at the Battle of the Shangani.