Darwendale is a small town in southern Zvimba District of Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe, on the Gwebi River.
[citation needed] The village grew from Otto Christian Zimmerman's[2] farm which was pegged out in the 1890s to grow tobacco.
This once productive tobacco producing node of Zimbabwe is now mainly visited for fishing in Darwendale Dam which boasts largemouth bass where the largest catch outside of the United States and Mexico was recorded on July 25, 2004, weighing 8.2 kilograms.
The most prevalent species are sable, kudu, waterbuck, bush pig, reedbuck, common duiker, warthog, baboon, vervet monkey, oribi and porcupine.
In the 1920s chromium mines were opened along the Great Dyke in the Lomagundi district both north and south of town.