The data presented from the population-based cancer registry in Harare, Zimbabwe, represent the first information on the incidence of cancer in Southern Africa for almost 20 years. In the African population in Zimbabwe there are several features in common with other countries in sub-Saharan Africa: high rates of liver, prostate and cervix cancer, low rates of large-bowel cancer and breast cancer. Also, as reported from southern and south-eastern Africa, there are relatively high incidence rates of cancers of the oesophagus, bladder and (in men) lung. The AIDS epidemic has given rise to a striking increase in incidence of Kaposi's sarcoma (now the commonest cancer of African men), but there is not much evidence for an increase in incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphomas nor, although rates are very high, of cervical cancer.