ABOUT MALAWI

Malawi is a warm and welcoming country that offers visitors wonderful scenery, fascinating parks and some of the friendliest people in Africa. A long and narrow landlocked country, it covers more than 1000 kilometers from north to south, while Lake Malawi, nearly 600km long and up to 80km wide, dominates the countryside. When David Livingstone arrived at the lake-shore in 1861, he was the first European explorer to see the Lake, and was so awestruck that he started missions here.

There is no country in all of Africa that has its geography so sculptured and determined by Africa’s Great Rift Valley, the largest single geographical feature on Earth. Towering mountains, lush, fertile valley floors and enormous crystal-clear lakes are hallmarks of much of the Rift Valley – and Malawi displays them all.

Malawi’s people are friendly and outgoing, while being rooted in a patriarchal tradition that has a strict dress code. It is one of Africa’s more densely populated countries, with a population of over 16 million, and the country faces formidable challenges similar to other countries on the continent. The realities of modern African conservation are very apparent in Malawi unique topography. Chief among these challenges is a rural population that relies heavily on the basic natural resources of soil and water and the bounty they produce. For those keen on experiencing African culture in all its complexity and beauty, Malawi is definitely the perfect country for this.

Aside from open water, the unique bio-geographical province of the Lake harbours a wide range of underwater habitats including sandy, weedy, rock-sand interface and reed beds. Lake Malawi holds a one-of-a-kind ecosystem, which over 400 species of fish found nowhere else in the world. There are also a number of islands dotted across the Lake, separated from the mainland by sandy flats and deep water. Much of its astounding underwater diversity is protected within the Lake Malawi National Park at Cape Maclear in the south.

Beyond the immediate orbit of the Lake, the floor of the Rift Valley rises steeply to hills, gorges with plunging rivers and precipitous valleys. The mountains and plateaux of Malawi form a dramatic and scenic contrast to the level surface of the Lake and its floodplains. The most extensive is the Nyika Plateau in the thinly populated north-east, while perhaps the most spectacular is the Mulanje Massif rising 2 000 metres out of surrounding tea estates in the south.

Between these two main high altitude areas and as the country slopes towards the Luangwa River in neighboring Zambia, the high ramparts of the mountains morph into the undulating plains of the Central African Plateau. This landscape is generally cultivated and supports a large part of Malawi’s rural population.

At its southern extremity the Shire River drains Lake Malawi and flows through the country’s lowlands en route to its confluence with the Zambezi River. In the densely populated southern reaches of the country lie Liwonde and Lengwe National Parks and the Majete Game Reserve, subtropical contrasts to the protected areas further north. This is where the bulk of the country’s elephant population occurs and it is only here that the secretive nyala penetrates into Malawi.