Current Time in Lichinga, Mozambique

Lichinga is the capital of Niassa Province in the far north-west of Mozambique, close to the borders with Malawi and Tanzania. It stands on a high plateau at around thirteen hundred metres above sea level, a short distance east of Lake Niassa, the enormous freshwater lake known in neighbouring countries as Lake Malawi. The altitude gives the town a cool and pleasant climate that contrasts sharply with the humid heat of the Mozambican coast, and the surrounding landscape of grassland, miombo woodland and pine plantations is often compared to a highland savannah.

With a population of a little over two hundred thousand, Lichinga is the administrative and commercial centre of the largest but least densely populated province in the country. Farming dominates the economy, with maize, beans, potatoes, vegetables, tobacco and increasingly soya grown on the fertile plateau soils, while commercial forestry has expanded rapidly and fishing on the lake supports many communities nearby. Government offices, schools, hospitals and trade provide most urban employment.

The plateau has long been home to Yao, Nyanja and Makua peoples, and Arab and Swahili traders reached the lake shore centuries ago. The Portuguese established a station here in the early twentieth century and named it Vila Cabral after a colonial administrator, developing it slowly as a remote outpost with a small European community, an airfield and a cathedral. During the war of independence the province was a major theatre of the liberation struggle, and after 1975 the town took the name Lichinga. Isolation and the civil war that followed held back development for decades, and only in recent years have roads, power supply and communications improved substantially.

The town itself is quiet and low-rise, laid out with wide avenues and shaded by jacaranda and eucalyptus trees. The cathedral, the provincial museum, the colourful central market and the old colonial buildings are the main points of interest. Most travellers, however, use Lichinga as a base for the surrounding region. The shores of Lake Niassa at Metangula and Cóbuè, reached by road down the escarpment, offer clear water, sandy beaches, snorkelling among brilliantly coloured cichlid fish and traditional fishing villages. To the east lies the Niassa Special Reserve, one of the largest protected wilderness areas in Africa, home to elephants, lions, wild dogs, sable antelope and vast tracts of untouched woodland.

Local culture reflects the Yao and Nyanja heritage of the region, with drumming, mask dances, basketry and pottery, and a cuisine built on maize porridge, cassava, beans and freshwater fish. Portuguese is the official language, but Yao and Nyanja are widely spoken.

An airport links Lichinga with Maputo, Nampula and Pemba, a railway runs to Cuamba and on towards the port of Nacala, and improved roads reach Malawi. A branch of the national teacher training and agricultural higher education system serves the province.

Lichinga is the gateway to some of the wildest and most beautiful landscapes in southern Africa.