The city's marquee festival is the Harare International Festival of the Arts, modelled on the Edinburgh Festival and one of the largest arts festivals in the southern hemisphere.

In 2018, Harare was ranked as a Gamma world city. Harare has hosted multiple international conferences and events, including the 1995 All-Africa Games and the 2003 Cricket World Cup. Harare has the second-highest number of embassies in Southern Africa and serves as the location of the African headquarters of the World Health Organization, which it shares with Brazzaville. It remains an important centre of commerce, government, finance, real estate, manufacturing, healthcare, design, education, art, culture, tourism, agriculture, mining and regional affairs. Long the commercial capital of Zimbabwe, Harare has seen economic ups and downs since the 2000s. It retained the name Salisbury until 1982, when it was renamed Harare on the second anniversary of Zimbabwean independence from the United Kingdom. Salisbury was thereafter the seat of the Southern Rhodesian (later Rhodesian) government and, between 19, the capital of the Central African Federation.

Company administrators demarcated the city and ran it until Southern Rhodesia achieved responsible government in 1923. The city was founded in 1890 by the Pioneer Column, a small military force of the British South Africa Company, and named Fort Salisbury after the UK Prime Minister Lord Salisbury. The city sits on a plateau at an elevation of 1,483 metres (4,865 feet) above sea level and its climate falls into the subtropical highland category. Situated in north-eastern Zimbabwe in the country's Mashonaland region, Harare is a metropolitan province, which also incorporates the municipalities of Chitungwiza and Epworth. The city proper has an area of 960.6 km 2 (371 mi 2) and a population 2,123,132 in the 2012 census and an estimated 3,120,917 in its metropolitan area in 2019. Harare ( / h ə ˈ r ɑːr eɪ/ formerly Salisbury / ˈ s ɔː l z b ə r i/ until 1982) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. Dialling code 242 (or 0242 from within Zimbabwe)

Postal code zimbabwe harare