Transportation in Malawi is poorly developed. The country of almost 14 million has 39 airports, 6 with paved runways and 33 with unpaved runways. It has 797 kilometres of railways, all narrow-gauge and about 45 percent of its roads are paved. Though it is landlocked, Malawi also has 700 km (435 mi) of waterways on Lake Malawi and along the Shire River.
This article is about the transport in Zambia.
Chinde is a town of Mozambique, and a port for the Zambezi valley. It is located on the Chinde River, and is an important fishing center. It exports copra and sugar, and had a population of 16,500 in 1980. Chinde lies in Chinde District of Zambezia Province.
Nyasaland was a British protectorate located in Africa that was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Between 1953 and 1963, Nyasaland was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. After the Federation was dissolved, Nyasaland became independent from Britain on 6 July 1964 and was renamed Malawi.
Tete is the capital city of Tete Province in Mozambique. It is located on the Zambezi River, and is the site of two of the four bridges crossing the river in Mozambique. A Swahili trade center before the Portuguese colonial era, Tete continues to dominate the west-central part of the country and region, and is the largest city on the Zambezi. In the local language, Nyungwe, Tete means "reed".
The African Lakes Corporation plc was a British company originally set-up in 1877 by Scottish businessmen to co-operate with Presbyterian missions in what is now Malawi. Despite its original connections with the Free Church of Scotland, it operated its businesses in Africa on a commercial rather than a philanthropic basis. It had political ambitions in the 1880s to control part of Central Africa and engaged in armed conflict with Swahili traders. Its businesses in the colonial era included water transport on the lakes and rivers of Central Africa, wholesale and retail trading including the operation of general stores, labour recruitment, landowning and later an automotive business. The company later diversified, but suffered an economic decline in the 1990s and was liquidated in 2007. One of the last Directors of the company kindly bought the records of the company and donated them to Glasgow University Archive Services, where they are still available for research.
Chindio is a village on the north bank of the Zambezi River in Mozambique, downstream of its junction with the Shire River. Chindio is not the same place as Chinde, although they are both on the Zambezi and in Mozambique.
Caia is a town on the south bank of the Zambezi River in Sofala Province, Mozambique. It is a relatively small town with few modern facilities besides a petrol station and the neighbouring bank. Caia and surrounding communities have been experiencing an escalating HIV/AIDS epidemic, drawing national and foreign aid to the area, including a Canadian foundation called the Caia Connection based in Vila de Sena, 57.6 Kilometres north of Caia.
Railway stations in Mozambique include:
Mutarara, or Nhamayabué, is a town in Mozambique. It lies on the north bank of the Zambezi River.
Malawi Railways is the national rail network in Malawi, run by a government corporation until privatisation in 1999. As of 1 December 1999 the Central East African Railways, a consortium led by Railroad Development Corporation, won the right to operate the network.
The history of rail transport in Mozambique began in the latter years of the nineteenth century.
Eugene Charles Albert Sharrer was a British subject by naturalisation but of German descent, who was a leading entrepreneur in what is now Malawi for around fifteen years between his arrival in 1888 and his departure. He rapidly built-up commercial operations including wholesale and retail trading, considerable holdings of land, cotton and coffee plantations and a fleet of steamers on the Zambezi and Shire rivers. Sharrer was prominent in pressure groups that represented the interests of European planters and their businesses to the colonial authorities, and was responsible for the development of the first railway in what had become the British Central Africa Protectorate, whose construction was agreed in 1902. In 1902, Sharrer consolidate all his business interests into the British Central Africa Company Ltd and became its principal shareholder Shortly after this he left British Central Africa permanently for London, although he retained his financial interests in the territory. Very little is known of his history before he arrived in Central Africa but he died in London during the First World War.
John Buchanan (1855–1896), was a Scottish horticulturist who went to Central Africa, now Malawi, in 1876 as a lay member of the missionary party that established Blantyre Mission. Buchanan came to Central Africa as an ambitious artisan: his character was described as dour and devout but also as restlessly ambitious, and he saw in Central Africa a gateway to personal achievement. He started a mission farm on the site of Zomba, Malawi but was dismissed from the mission in 1881 for brutality. From being a disgraced missionary, Buchanan first became a very influential planter owning, with his brothers, extensive estates in Zomba District. He then achieved the highest position he could in the British administration as Acting British Consul to Central Africa from 1887 to 1891. In that capacity declared a protectorate over the Shire Highlands in 1889 to pre-empt a Portuguese expedition that intended to claim sovereignty over that region. In 1891, the Shire Highlands became part of the British Central Africa Protectorate. John Buchanan died at Chinde in Mozambique in March 1896 on his way to visit Scotland, and his estates were later acquired by the Blantyre and East Africa Ltd.
The history of rail transport in Malawi began shortly after the turn of the twentieth century.
The Shire Highlands Railway Company Ltd was a private railway company in colonial Nyasaland, incorporated in 1895 with the intention of constructing a railway from Blantyre to the effective head of navigation of the Shire River. After problems with routing and finance, a South African 3 ft 6 in gauge railway was constructed between 1903 and 1907, and extended in 1908 to a Nsanje, a distance of 113 miles (182 km) as water levels in the Shire River fell.
Nacala railway, also known as Northern Corridor railway and Nacala Corridor railway, is a railway line that operates in northern Mozambique on a 912 kilometres (567 mi) line that runs west from the port city of Nacala, crossing the central region of Malawi, connecting with the coal belt of Moatize, in northwest Mozambique. It is connected to the Dona Ana-Moatize railway branch and the Sena railway (Chipata-Lilongwe-Blantyre-Nhamayabue-Dondo). It also has a 262 kilometres (163 mi) branch line from Cuamba to Lichinga.
Sena railway, also called Shire Highlands railway, Dondo-Malawi railway and North-South Malawi railway, is a railway that connects Dondo, Mozambique, to Chipata, in Zambia. It is c. 1000 km long, in a 1067 mm gauge.
