Cuamba is a city and district of
Niassa Province
Niassa is a province of Mozambique. It has an area of 129,056 km2 and a population of 1,810,794 (2017). It is the most sparsely populated province in the country. Lichinga is the capital of the province. There are a minimum estimated 450,000 ...
in
Mozambique
Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
, lying north west of
Mount Namuli
Mount Namuli is the second highest mountain in Mozambique and the highest in the Province of Zambezia. It is high and was measured, surveyed and described in 1886 by Henry Edward O'Neill, the British consul in Mozambique. The Namuli massif con ...
. Before independence the town was known as ''Nova Freixo'' (New Ash).
It lies on the
EN8 road, which connects it to the city of
Nampula in the east and to the Malawian border in the west.
History
Cuamba was created by the
Niassa Company, a royal
charter company in what was then known as
Portuguese East Africa. The land concession of the Niassa Company extended from 1891 and 1929, and it established a military outpost initially called Kuamba in this period. The name referred to a small kingdom in the area, and Cuamba became the official name of the settlement in 1937. Its name was changed to Nova Freixo in 1952, a reference to the city of
Freixo de Espada à Cinta,
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...
, the birthplace of
Sarmento Rodrigues
Manuel Maria Sarmento Rodrigues (15 June 1899 – 1 August 1979) was a naval officer, colonist and professor. He was born in 1899 in Freixo de Espada à Cinta, Portugal. He attended a secondary school in Bragança and attended the University of ...
(1899-1979), the colonial governor-general of Mozambique. The town reverted to its original name of Cuamba in 1976, and was elevated to city status in 1971.
Transport
It lies on the junction of the
Nacala railway line, connecting
Malawi
Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northe ...
to the seaport of
Nacala, and the branch line to
Lichinga.
There is an airport in the city called
Cuamba Airport
Cuamba Airport is an airport serving Cuamba, a city in the Niassa Province in Mozambique. The airport is in the southern part of the city and is a major airport in the province of Niassa in central Mozambique.
There are no scheduled flights in ...
.
Education
The town is home to the School of Agriculture of the
Catholic University of Mozambique.
Demographics
See also
*
Railway stations in Mozambique
References
{{coord, 14, 49, 00, S, 36, 33, 00, E, type:city, display=title
Populated places in Niassa Province