Lunda-related peoples expanded from the Katanga region after the earlier establishment of Shona dominance south of the Zambezi. Their movement was gradual and politically productive: immigrant groups settled in fertile flood plains, founded kingdoms, and extended their frontiers through diplomacy and military activity. The resulting states formed one of the principal political systems of Central Africa before the intensification of nineteenth-century external intervention.

The Lozi were identified as the first Lunda immigrants, settling in the fertile Zambezi flood plains roughly two centuries before the early nineteenth century. They were followed by communities that established the kingdoms of Kalonga and Undi in what is now Malawi, as well as the progenitors of the Lala, Senga, and Bemba states farther west. By 1740, Mwata Kazembe, described as the last major Lunda immigrant, had settled in the Luapula region.

During the remainder of the eighteenth century, Lunda-related states consolidated their holdings and extended their frontiers. By 1800, Undi, Kalonga, and Lozi had reached their apogee, while Bemba expansion was still under way. Lunda political institutions also influenced neighbouring societies through systems of perpetual kinship and positional succession, leaving a durable imprint on political organization north of the Zambezi.