Zimbabwe document photos online

In January 2009 the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe printed a single banknote worth one hundred trillion dollars (Z$100,000,000,000,000) — the largest-denomination note any government has ever legally issued. It was no joke: annual inflation had spiralled into the sextillions, and on its first day the trillion-dollar note bought roughly US$30 of groceries; within weeks it was worthless. By April 2009 Zimbabwe gave up its own money entirely and ran on a basket of foreign currencies, eventually recognising eight legal tenders at once. The country that once printed the world's biggest number now sits at the heart of one of history's most extraordinary monetary stories.

• Currency Zimbabwe issued the highest-denomination banknote in legal history — a 100-trillion-dollar note in 2009 — that on its debut was worth only about US$30 and soon nothing at all.
• Currency After abandoning its dollar in 2009, Zimbabwe ran on foreign money and at one point recognised eight legal tenders simultaneously, including the US dollar, South African rand, Chinese yuan, Indian rupee and Japanese yen.
• Currency In April 2024 Zimbabwe launched the ZiG (Zimbabwe Gold), a structured currency backed by about 2.5 tonnes of gold plus foreign reserves, with a plan to make it the sole legal tender by 2030.
• Passport The Zimbabwean passport ranks around 72nd worldwide on the 2025 Henley Passport Index, giving holders visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to roughly 61 destinations.
• Citizenship Zimbabwe's 2013 constitution legalised dual citizenship — but only for citizens by birth, while those who are citizens by descent or registration are still barred from holding a second nationality.
• Name origin The nation took its name from Great Zimbabwe, a medieval stone city whose name in Shona means "houses of stone" — making Zimbabwe one of the few countries named after an ancient ruin.
• History Great Zimbabwe's Great Enclosure is the largest ancient structure in sub-Saharan Africa: an elliptical granite wall up to 11 metres high and over 250 metres around, built entirely without mortar.
• Record Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya, "the smoke that thunders") on the Zambezi forms the world's largest sheet of falling water, about 1.7 km wide and 108 metres high.
• Population Zimbabwe's 2022 census counted 15.1 million people, up from 13 million a decade earlier, with the population since projected past 16 million.