Harare's city centre: where the head offices went
Which banks, companies, embassies, UN agencies and NGOs have left Harare's CBD, when, and where to? What does the satellite record show about where Harare is building?
9 November 2026 · Real estate, Financial services · Read the article on dotzedw.com · City map
Harare's CBD has lost most of its head offices. We built the record: the head office address of 48 organisations, from their own websites as the Internet Archive saved them since 2009 and as they are today, each linked to the page it came from.
With it, the building growth in the CBD and the suburban office areas from satellite mapping (2016 to 2023), and the rents and vacancy property firms report. This page holds the full table and the measurements.
What members get
- Every organisation's head office then and now, with a link to the archived or live page for each address
- Building footprint and count, 2016 and 2023, for the CBD, the Avenues and five suburban office areas
- A download of the full table
This study is part of the Individual plan
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How we did it
Addresses: each organisation's websites (including former names), as saved by the Internet Archive near 2010, 2016 and 2021, and the live pages in November 2026; every address checked by hand. Where a page gave no head office, a primary report is used and marked. Areas: CBD (the grid south of Samora Machel Avenue, and the avenue itself), the Avenues (north of it), suburbs and industrial areas.
Building growth: Google Open Buildings 2.5D Temporal, 2016 and 2023, summed over the dotzedw city model's 0.74 km² hexagons; the CBD and the Avenues as mapped in OpenStreetMap (retail and commercial land use); office areas 1.2 km around each node.
Rents and vacancy as reported by Knight Frank (via PropertyWheel, NewsDay and Propertyzone) and the Tigere REIT's 2024 annual report.
What this cannot tell you
- The archive starts in 2009: earlier moves cannot be dated.
- 48 organisations are a sample: 30 of the 78 tried had no page giving a head office address.
- An address is not a headcount: branches and registered offices can stay behind.
- Footprint is not floor area.
- Rents and vacancy are reported, not measured.