Maputo
Maputo is the capital and largest city of Mozambique. Located near the southern end of the country, it is within of the borders with Eswatini and South Africa. The city has a population of 1,088,449 distributed over a land area of. The Maputo metropolitan area includes the neighbouring city of Matola, and has a total population of 2,717,437. Maputo is a port city, with an economy centered on commerce. It is noted for its vibrant cultural scene and distinctive, eclectic architecture. Maputo was formerly named Lourenço Marques.
Maputo is situated on a large natural bay on the Indian Ocean, near where the rivers Tembe, Mbuluzi, Matola and Infulene converge. The city consists of seven administrative divisions, which are each subdivided into quarters or bairros. The city is surrounded by Maputo Province, but is administered as a self-contained, separate province since 1998. Maputo City is the geographically smallest and most densely populated province in Mozambique. Maputo is a cosmopolitan city, with Xitsonga, Portuguese, and, to a lesser extent, Arabic, Indian, and Chinese languages and cultures present. Almost 50% of Maputo speaks Portuguese as a native language as of 2017.
The area on which Maputo stands was first settled as a fishing village by ancient Tsonga people. It was soon named Lourenço Marques, after the navigator of the same name who explored the area in 1544. The modern city traces its origins to a Portuguese fort established on the site in 1781. A town grew around the fort starting around 1850, and in 1877 it was elevated to city status. In 1898, the colony of Portuguese Mozambique relocated its capital there. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Lourenço Marques grew both in population and economic development as a port city. Upon Mozambican independence in 1975, the city became the national capital and was renamed Maputo. During the Mozambican Civil War, the city's economy was devastated. When the war ended, the FRELIMO government launched a program to revive the city's economy, and to clean up the city by forcibly removing criminals, squatters, and undocumented residents.
Maputo has a number of landmarks, including Independence Square, City Hall, Maputo Fortress, the central market, Tunduru Gardens, and Maputo Railway Station. Maputo is known as an aesthetically attractive, if dilapidated, city. With wide avenues lined by jacaranda and acacia trees, it has earned the nicknames City of Acacias and the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. The city is known for its distinct, eclectic architecture, with Portuguese colonial Neoclassical and Manueline styles alongside modern art deco, bauhaus, tropical modernism and Brutalist buildings. The historic Baixa de Maputo district is the downtown area. Maputo has a vibrant cultural scene, with many restaurants, music and performance venues, and local film industry. Maputo's economy is centred around its port, through which much of Mozambique's imports and exports are shipped. The chief exports include cotton, sugar, chromite, sisal, copra, and hardwood. In addition to trade, the city has robust manufacturing and service sectors. Several colleges and universities are located in Maputo, including Pedagogical University, São Tomás University, Catholic University of Mozambique, and Eduardo Mondlane University, the oldest in the country.
History
On the northern bank of Espírito Santo Estuary of Delagoa Bay, an inlet of the Indian Ocean, Lourenço Marques was named after the Portuguese navigator who, with António Caldeira, was sent in 1544 by the governor of Mozambique on a voyage of exploration. They explored the lower courses of the rivers emptying their waters into Delagoa Bay, notably the Espírito Santo. The forts and trading stations that the Portuguese established, abandoned and reoccupied on the north bank of the river were all named "Lourenço Marques". The existing town dates from about 1850, with the previous settlement having been entirely destroyed by the natives. The town developed around a Portuguese fortress completed in 1787.In 1871, the town was described as a poor place, with narrow streets, fairly good flat-roofed houses, grass huts, decayed forts, and a rusty cannon, enclosed by a recently erected wall high and protected by bastions at intervals. The growing importance of the Transvaal led, however, to greater interest being taken back in Portugal in the development of a port. A commission was sent by the Portuguese government in 1876 to drain the marshy land near the settlement, to plant the blue gum tree, and to build a hospital and a church. A city since 1887, it superseded the Island of Mozambique as the capital of Mozambique in 1898. In 1895, the opening of the NZASM railroad to Pretoria, South Africa, caused the city's population to grow. The Witwatersrand Gold Rush, which began in 1886, also increased the economic development of the city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as Lourenço Marques served as the closest seaport for the export of gold from South Africa.
On 9 December 1876, Lourenço Marques was elevated to the status of town, and on 10 November 1887 it became a city.
The Luso-British conflict for the possession of Lourenço Marques ended on 24 July 1875 with Patrice de MacMahon, the French President, ruling in favour of Portugal.
In the early 20th century, with a well-equipped seaport, with piers, quays, landing sheds and electric cranes which enabled large vessels to discharge cargoes direct into the railway trucks, Lourenço Marques developed under Portuguese rule and achieved great importance as a lively cosmopolitan city. It was served by British, Portuguese, and German liners, and the majority of its imported goods were shipped to Southampton, Lisbon, and Hamburg.
With the continuous growth of the city's population due to its expanding economy centred on the seaport, from the 1940s Portugal's administration built a network of primary and secondary schools, industrial and commercial schools as well as the first university in the region. The University of Lourenço Marques was opened in 1962. Portuguese, Islamic, Indian and Chinese communities — but not the unskilled African majority — achieved great prosperity by developing the industrial and commercial sectors of the city. Urban areas of Mozambique grew quickly in this period due to the lack of restriction on the internal migration of indigenous Mozambicans, a situation that differed from the apartheid policies of neighbouring South Africa.
Before Mozambique's independence in 1975, thousands of tourists from South Africa and Rhodesia frequented the city and its scenic beaches, high-quality hotels, restaurants, casinos, and brothels.
The Mozambique Liberation Front, or FRELIMO, formed in Tanzania in 1962 and led by Eduardo Mondlane, fought for independence from Portuguese rule. The Mozambican War of Independence lasted over 10 years, ending only in 1974 when the Estado Novo regime was overthrown in Lisbon by a leftist military coup — the Carnation Revolution. The new government of Portugal granted independence to almost all Portuguese overseas territories.
The words "Aqui é Portugal" were once inscribed on the walkway of its municipal building.
Independence
The People's Republic of Mozambique was proclaimed on 25 June 1975 in accordance with the Lusaka Accord signed in September 1974. A parade and a state banquet completed the independence festivities in the capital, which was expected to be renamed Can Phumo, or "Place of Phumo", after a Shangaan chief who lived in the area before the Portuguese navigator Lourenço Marques first visited the site in 1545 and gave his name to it. However, after independence, the city's name was changed to Maputo. Maputo's name reputedly has its origin in the Maputo River: in fact, this river, which marks the border with South Africa in the southernmost extent of Mozambique, had become symbolic during the FRELIMO-led armed struggle against Portuguese sovereignty, after the motto «Viva Moçambique unido, do Rovuma ao Maputo», that is, Hail Mozambique, united from Rovuma down to Maputo.Geography
Maputo is located on the west side of Maputo Bay, near the Estuário do Espírito Santo where the four rivers Tembe, Umbeluzi, Matola and Infulene drain. The bay is long and wide. At the extreme east of the city and bay is the island of Inhaca. The total area covered by the municipality of Maputo is and borders the city of Matola northeast and east, the districts of Marracuene to the north; Boane in the east and Matutuíne at the south all of which are part of Maputo Province. The city is from the South African border at Ressano Garcia and from the border with Eswatini near the town of Namaacha.Climate
Maputo features a tropical savanna climate under the Köppen climate classification, having enough precipitation to prevent it from being classified as a hot semi-arid climate. Maputo is a relatively dry city, averaging of precipitation per year. Precipitation is abundant during summer and sparse during winter. The city has a relatively warm climate averaging a mean temperature of. The hottest month is January with a mean temperature of, while the coolest month is July with a mean temperature of.Climate change
A 2019 paper published in PLOS One estimated that under Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5, a "moderate" scenario of climate change where global warming reaches ~ by 2100, the climate of Maputo in the year 2050 would most closely resemble the current climate of Goiânia in Brazil. The annual temperature would increase by, and the temperature of the warmest month by, while the temperature of the coldest month would increase by. According to Climate Action Tracker, the current warming trajectory appears consistent with, which closely matches RCP 4.5.Moreover, Maputo is particularly vulnerable to impacts such as cyclones and flooding caused by sea level rise. Poverty and inequality, which are concentrated in the overpopulated bairros, further exacerbate climate change vulnerabilities in the city. According to the 2022 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Maputo is one of 12 major African cities which would be the most severely affected by future sea level rise. It estimates that they would collectively sustain cumulative damages of US$65 billion under RCP 4.5 and US$86.5 billion for the high-emission scenario RCP 8.5 by the year 2050. Additionally, RCP 8.5 combined with the hypothetical impact from marine ice sheet instability at high levels of warming would involve up to US$137.5 billion in damages, while the additional accounting for the "low-probability, high-damage events" may increase aggregate risks to US$187 billion for the "moderate" RCP4.5, US$206 billion for RCP8.5 and US$397 billion under the high-end ice sheet instability scenario. Since sea level rise would continue for about 10,000 years under every scenario of climate change, future costs of sea level rise would only increase, especially without adaptation measures.