Rutenga, is an important village in the province of

Masvingo Province Masvingo, previously named Victoria, is a province in southeastern Zimbabwe. It has a population of 1.638 million as of the 2022 census, ranking fifth out of Zimbabwe's ten provinces. Established by the British South Africa Company, it was one o ...

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

. It is the de facto capital of

Mwenezi (District) Mwenezi, originally known as Nuanetsi, is a small district situated in southern Zimbabwe. It is bisected by the Mwenezi River and the A4 highway, the main thoroughfare that connects the town of Beitbridge, on the border with South Africa, to Masvi ...

. There are unverified claims that the name “Rutenga” is derived from corruption by local natives of what the Rhodesian settlers supposedly called “Route Anchor” given its central position to access South Africa and Mozambique. These claims are unlikely to be true as there are records of usage of the name “Rutenga” before the completion of the Rutenga-Beitbridge railway in 1974. There is also no known historical or modern-day usage of the term “Route Anchor” in Rhodesian or Zimbabwean railway history.

Transports

It straddles the A4 highway between

Beitbridge Beitbridge is a border town in the province of Matabeleland South, Zimbabwe. The name also refers to the border post and bridge spanning the Limpopo River, which forms the political border between South Africa and Zimbabwe. The border on the S ...

and

Masvingo Masvingo, known as Fort Victoria during the colonial period, is a city in southeastern Zimbabwe and the capital of Masvingo Province. The city lies close to Great Zimbabwe, the national monument from which the country takes its name and clos ...

. The village has a railway station on the

Limpopo railway Limpopo Railway, also called Gweru-Maputo railway, is a railway that connects the city of Maputo, Mozambique, to the city from Somabhula, in Zimbabwe. It is 900 km long, in a 1067 mm gauge.

that connects it to

Sango Sango may refer to: Ethnicities and languages * Sango people, an ethnic group of the Central African Republic * Sango language, a language of the Central African Republic Places * Sango Bay, a settlement in Uganda * Sangō, Nara, a town in Nara ...

and

Zvishavane Zvishavane, formerly known as Shabani, is a mining town in Midlands Province, Zimbabwe. Surrounded by low hills, it lies west of Masvingo, on the main Bulawayo-Masvingo road. Other roads lead from Zvishavane to Gweru, north, and Mberengwa, ...

.Network System: System Map
National Railways Of Zimbabwe. 2017. The same station serves as a link between the

and the Rutenga-Beitbridge railway.

Economy

It is an important point of economic and demographic growth for southwest Zimbabwe. Rutenga is an irrigation enclave that uses water from

Manyuchi Dam Manyuchi Dam forms a reservoir on the Mwenezi River in southern Zimbabwe. It is located in the Mwenezi District. The building of the dam was financed by the Mwenezi Development Corporation. The dam was built to irrigate oil palm estates. History ...

to irrigate sugar estates.

References

Business Centers in Mwenezi (District) Populated places in Masvingo Province Mwenezi (District) {{Zimbabwe-geo-stub