Mozambique
Alternative Titles: Republic of Mozambique, República de Moçambique
Mozambique
- OFFICIAL NAME
- República de Moçambique(Republic of Mozambique)
- FORM OF GOVERNMENT
- multiparty republic with a single legislative house (Assembly of the Republic [250])
- HEAD OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT
- President: Filipe Nyusi
- CAPITAL
- Maputo
- OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
- Portuguese
- OFFICIAL RELIGION
- none
- MONETARY UNIT
- (new) metical (MTn; plural meticais)1
- POPULATION
- (2016 est.) 26,424,000
- TOTAL AREA (SQ MI)
- 308,642
- TOTAL AREA (SQ KM)
- 799,380
- URBAN-RURAL POPULATION
- Urban: (2014) 31.9%
Rural: (2014) 68.1%
- LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH
- Male: (2013) 52.2 years
Female: (2015) 53.7 years
- LITERACY: PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION AGE 15 AND OVER LITERATE
- Male: (2011) 68.6%
Female: (2011) 38.8%
- GNI PER CAPITA (U.S.$)
- (2015) 580
- 1The (new) metical (MTn) replaced the (old) metical (MT) on July 1, 2006, at a rate 1 MTn = MT 1,000.
Mozambique, a scenic country in southeastern Africa. Mozambique is rich in natural resources, is biologically and culturally diverse, and has a tropical climate. Its extensive coastline, fronting the Mozambique Channel, which separates mainland Africa from the island of Madagascar, offers some of Africa’s best natural harbours. These have allowed Mozambique an important role in the maritime economy of the Indian Ocean, while the country’s white sand beaches are an important attraction for the growing tourism industry. Fertile soils in the northern and central areas of Mozambique have yielded a varied and abundant agriculture, and the great Zambezi River has provided ample water for irrigation and the basis for a regionally important hydroelectric power industry.
Yet Mozambique’s turbulent recent history has kept its people from fully enjoying these natural advantages and from developing a stable, diversified economy. A former colony of Portugal, Mozambique provided mineral and agricultural products to its distant ruler while receiving few services in return. Following independence in 1975, Mozambique was torn by internal conflict as the Marxist government, supported in part by the Soviet Union and Cuba, battled anticommunist forces funded by South Africa and the former Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) for control of the country. Marked by countless acts of terror, the ensuing warfare displaced at least four million people and resulted in the death of perhaps a million more as a result of the violence, famine, and disease it engendered. Violence and disunity hindered economic development, especially the broadening of tourism, and discouraged foreign investment. The conflict formally ended in 1992, but its lingering effects are many: in the early 21st century, as many as one million unexploded land mines still remained along the country’s trails and roads, and much political strife continued between the major opposition forces and the central government.
In 2005, as part of a torch relay program to mark 30 years of independence, President Armando Guebuza noted that the torch’s flame was a symbol of Mozambique’s history and would light the people’s path “to the consolidation of independence and construction of their well-being.” As the torch was passed to a Mozambican born in the year that the country gained its independence, Guebuza remarked
Handing this torch over to a youth symbolizes our certainty that the combat we wage against poverty will be continued by our young people, guardians of our glorious political, historical and cultural heritage.
The capital is Maputo. Known until independence as Lourenço Marques, the city boasts fine colonial-era architecture and an attractive natural setting alongside the deepwater harbour of Maputo Bay. Maputo is the commercial and cultural centre of the country, and its sidewalk cafés, bars, and discotheques offer some of the liveliest nightlife in southern Africa. Other major cities and towns, most of which lie on or near the Indian Ocean coast, include Beira, Quelimane, Chimoio, Tete, Nampula, and Nacala.
Land
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Mozambique is about the size of the combined areas of the U.S. states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah; most of its territory stretches along the Indian Ocean coast from Cape (Cabo) Delgado in the north past the capital city of Maputo in the south. It is bordered to the north by Tanzania, to the east by the Mozambique Channel, which separates it from the island of Madagascar, to the south and southwest by South Africa and Swaziland, to the west by Zimbabwe, and to the northwest by Zambia, Malawi, and Lake Nyasa.
Relief
Lowlands dominate the southern provinces, narrowing to a mere coastal plain north of the cleft where the Zambezi River cuts through the country’s midsection. The Zambezi valley, the lower section of which is a part of the Eastern (Great) Rift Valley, is Mozambique’s most dramatic geographic feature. Throughout the country the land rises gently from east to west. In the centre and north it slopes steadily into the high plains and ultimately to the mountainous regions on the northwest border with Malawi and Zambia. Four of Mozambique’s five highland regions straddle the west and northwest border areas: the Chimoio Plateau on the border with Zimbabwe, the Marávia highlands bordering Zambia, and the Angónia highlands and Lichinga Plateau, which lie, respectively, west and east of Malawi’s protrusion into Mozambique. Mount Binga, the country’s highest elevation at 7,992 feet (2,436 metres), is part of the Chimoio highlands. The 7,936-foot (2,419-metre) peak at Mount Namúli dominates the Mozambican highland, which constitutes much of the northern interior.
Economy
The colonial economy was characterized by private monopolies, central planning, and state marketing of key products—all designed to promote capital accumulation by the state, Portuguese settlers, and Portuguese-based commerce and industry. Colonial policy excluded most Africans from highly skilled and managerial positions until the years immediately preceding independence. After independence the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique; Frelimo) government tried to change the colonial economic patterns by nationalizing key properties, promoting African education and training, and breaking up the Portuguese and South Asian hold on commercial distribution. Despite Frelimo’s public stand against ethnic discrimination, Portuguese settlers and South Asian traders—threatened by the government’s economic policies—left by the thousands. Settlers anticipating nationalizationabandoned their properties, adding by default to the proportion of the national economy that the state controlled, and large-scale state-run farms and communal and cooperative farming replaced the settler and company plantations. Frelimo’s agricultural undertakings proved unproductive and unmanageable, however, and, in combination with the flight of South Asian merchants and the instability caused by guerrilla warfare, much of the country’s agricultural production, commerce, and distribution system collapsed. In an effort to rebuild the economy, the state ultimately reoriented economic policy in accordance with plans imposed by the International Monetary Fund, which emphasized decentralization and privatization and provided assistance to family farmers.
Although agriculture has been the most widespread economic activity, remittances from migrant labourers in South Africa and revenues from tourism and the country’s port and railway sector have been equally important historically as sources of foreign exchange. While all these sectors declined severely during the 1980s and early ’90s because of civil unrest, they rebounded after the 1992 peace accord, and the industry sector —specifically, resource exploitation, aluminum smelting, and electricity production—also expanded. By the early 21st century, Mozambique had attained a significant amount of economic growth.
Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
Although agriculture employs about four-fifths of the country’s workforce, it constitutes only about one-fifth of Mozambique’s gross domestic product. Most agricultural production comes from family farming operations, which produce the two staple crops of corn (maize)—in which Mozambique was self-sufficient by 1997—and cassava, as well as beans, rice, and a variety of vegetables and oilseeds such as peanuts (groundnuts), sesame, and sunflowers. Family labour is also responsible for gathering a large part of the cashew nut crop and produces cotton for the local market and for export. Although agricultural output declined in most rural areas during the late 1970s and ’80s, greater social and political stability and favourable climatic conditions led to a marked increase in production in the 1990s. Agricultural performance is particularly vulnerable to natural disasters such as droughts and flooding; in 2000, for example, severe flooding in the central and southern part of the country seriously disrupted agriculture and infrastructure in the affected regions.
Sugar, tea, copra, and sisal, developed as plantation crops during the colonial era, are still produced by private plantations, state farms, government-sponsored cooperatives, and communal villages. Irrigation occurs primarily in the area along the Zambezi River that is irrigated by the Cahora Bassa Dam and in the former settler areas in the south, particularly along the Limpopo River, that are irrigated by schemes developed in the 1950s and ’60s. Production of beef and pork, formerly important, has been surpassed by poultry.
The forests along the Beira railway and in Zambézia province in the north have been exploited since independence as the country’s key source of domestic fuel, firewood, and charcoal, though South African investors are interested in Mozambique’s potential to provide wood for building materials and pulp for paper industries. The country’s forest resources were briefly exploited for both export and local building material during the 1960s and ’70s, but significant hardwood forest reserves have survived deforestation for fuel. More timber is cut than replaced by reforestation initiatives, however, and the long-term ecological effects of eucalyptus plantations are a concern.
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Fishing is one area of the economy that is immune to rural insecurity. Mozambique’s offshore waters contain lobster, tuna, mackerel, sardines, and anchovies but are best known for the shrimp (prawns) that are an important export commodity. Since 1973 production and marketing of saltwater fish, shrimp, and shellfish have increased steadily.
History
During the colonial era Mozambique’s history was written as though it had begun with the arrival of the Portuguese, but the people of this region had developed complex communities based on agriculture, cattle raising, mining, crafts, and trade long before the first small groups of Portuguese settlers arrived in the 16th century. Archaeological and historical research since 1950 has begun to reintegrate Mozambique’s past with that of East, Central, and Southern Africa. For a consideration of Mozambique in its regional context, see Southern Africa.
Precolonial period
Early settlement
From at least the 3rd century ce, Iron Age people who practiced agriculture and kept both cattle and small livestock moved into Mozambique as part of the migration of Bantu speakers from west-central Africa toward the south and east. These people had mastered iron technology and combined the cultivation of some grains with knowledge of root and tree crops. In the process they created such sustained population growth that they needed to expand their territory. In a slow but fairly steady process, one branch of Bantu speakers moved east toward the Indian Ocean and then south along the coast, and another moved more directly south-southeast into the Zimbabwe plateau and highlands of western Mozambique.
The characteristic social unit was the extended patrilineal household headed by an elder male and consisting of his wives, their unmarried children, adult sons, and the sons’ families. Although both social and labour organization varied throughout the area, women were usually responsible for child care, cultivation, gathering of food crops, and food preparation, whereas men were involved in cattle keeping, hunting, toolmaking, and a range of crafts.
Toward the end of the 1st millennium ce, groups of households called nyika had emerged in south-central Mozambique as social units under the authority of a chief and chiefly household. In the 10th century a settlement known as Mapungubwe, which incorporated many nyika, developed in the upper reaches of the Limpopo River. It was the earliest of the settlements featuring stone enclosures, or zimbabwes.
Source: www.britannica.com
BY:
Jeanne Marie Penvenne, Kathleen Eddy Sheldon
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