Luba-Lunda States , a complex of states that lived from the late 15th to the late 19th centuries in Central Africa (in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo ) flourished. The Luba state was located east of Kasai around the top of the Lualaba and the Lunda State east of the Kwango River around the headwaters of the Kasai River. A later state, Kazembe , was in the southeast.
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The largest of all the Luba-Lunda states was Kazembe , founded at the beginning of the 18th century when the last major expansion of the Luba-Lunda complex took place; Migrants from Lunda moved southeast and established a capital in the Luapula valley south of Mweru Lakes (in contemporary Zambia).
From the beginning, the Luba-Lunda states were indirectly linked to the Portuguese in Angola, who in exchange for slaves and Ivory fabrics and other goods supplied. The Kazembe Lunda, who established their state with the help of Portuguese arms, soon traded their ivory at the Portuguese trading posts on the Zambezi from . Kazembe continued to flourish until the late 19th century when it was colonized by the British.
The once independent states are now part of the country of Democratic Republic of the Congo , but the Lunda people still recognize a Lunda ruler with ceremonial authority. The last Luba ruler, Kasongo Nyembo, ruled the state from 1891 to 1917.