Overview
KwaZulu and Zululand are different names for the same region in what is today known as the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa. KwaZulu is an isiZulu word, which means "home of the Zulus" or "Place of Heaven". This is an apt name for the area as the Zulu nation has always been based here and historically formed their identity as a separate Nguni-speaking tribe here as well. It is still the cultural heartland of the Zulu nation. The King of the Zulus, who resides here, is recognised in the South African Constitution. Millions of Zulu people still live here, many of them in rural areas where Zulu traditions are kept alive.

KwaZulu is located in the north of KwaZulu-Natal. It covers a large area of the province to the north of the Tugela River and east of the Drakensberg. Some of the towns in this region are: Babanago, Empangeni, Eshowe, Gingindlovu, Hluhluwe, Jozini, Kosi Bay, Magudu, Melmoth, Mkuze, Mtubatuba, Mtunzini, Nongoma, Paulpietersburg, Pongola, Richards Bay, Sudwana Bay, St Lucia, Ulundi and Vryheid.

Abbreviated history of KwaZulu-Natal
The Zulu nation came into being and settled in KwaZulu well before the first European settlers arrived. The first life altering contacts between the Zulu's and the European settlers took place in the late 1830's with the arrival of Dutch-Afrikaans Voortrekkers. After some bloody battles, the different parties more or less agreed that the area north of the Tugela River, and east of the Drakensberg, was to be regarded Zulu country. South of the Tugela became the Voortrekkers' Republic of Natal.

Although the Republic of Natal was forcefully taken over by the British, and named Natal, the general agreement regarding KwaZulu remained in tact until the Anglo-Zulu Wars in 1879. After the Zulus in the Battle of Isandhlwana dealt the invading army a humiliating historic defeat, the British Empire eventually overpowered the Zulus at Ulundi and annexed KwaZulu into Natal. After the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) Natal, and thus KwaZulu, became part of the newly established Union of South Africa in 1913.

KwaZulu was recognised as a Zulu homeland In Apartheid South Africa (1948-1994), however this was probably intended more to marginalise the Zulu nation than to empower... With the arrival of a democratic and united South Africa in 1994 all the Apartheid homelands were scrapped and integrated into the new South Africa. For the first time black South Africans, including Zulu people, were granted full South African citizenship.

(...also see South African history).