Matola is the largest suburb of the

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

capital,

Maputo Maputo () is the Capital city, 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 (as of 2017) distributed ov ...

, adjacent to its westernmost side. It is the nation's most populated city. Matola is the capital of

Maputo Province Maputo is a province of Mozambique; the province excludes the city of Maputo (which comprises a separate province). The province has an area of and a population of 1,968,906 (2017 census). Its capital is the city of Matola. Geography Maputo ...

and has had its own elected municipal government since 1998. It has a port and also the biggest industrial area in Mozambique. The population of Matola was, according to the 2007 census, 671,556 inhabitants, having increased to a 2017 census population of 1,032,197.

Etymology

Matola, which is also a common family name, comes from ''Matsolo'' a

Ronga Ronga (XiRonga; sometimes ShiRonga or GiRonga) is a Bantu language of the Tswa–Ronga branch spoken just south of Maputo in Mozambique. It extends a little into South Africa. It has about 650,000 speakers in Mozambique and a further 90,000 in ...

kingdom that existed in this region when the colonists arrived.

Industry

Matola is an industrial centre with an important port for

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Mi ...

s (

chromium Chromium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6 element, group 6. It is a steely-grey, Luster (mineralogy), lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium ...

and

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

) and other exports from

Eswatini Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where i ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. It has

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...

refineries (presently inactive) and diverse industries, which manufacture products like

soap Soap is a salt (chemistry), salt of a fatty acid (sometimes other carboxylic acids) used for cleaning and lubricating products as well as other applications. In a domestic setting, soaps, specifically "toilet soaps", are surfactants usually u ...

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...

, and

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

materials. The most important of these is an

aluminium Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

smelter, installed in 2002, that more than doubled Mozambique's

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performance o ...

. In November 2014,

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

n car company

Hyundai Motor Company Hyundai Motor Company, often referred to as Hyundai Motors, ( ) and commonly known as Hyundai (), is a South Korean multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturer headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, which ...

opened a plant in Matola (Somyoung Motors), which manufactures the

Hyundai i10 The Hyundai i10 is a city car produced by the South Korean manufacturer Hyundai since 2007. It replaced the Hyundai Atos in the model line-up, and was initially available only as a five-door hatchback body style. The third generation i10 was un ...

and

Hyundai Accent The Hyundai Accent (), or Hyundai Verna (현대 베르나) is a subcompact car produced by Hyundai. In Australia, the first generation models carried over the Hyundai Excel name used by the Accent's predecessor. The Accent was replaced in 2000 ...

Transport

Matola is served by a station on the southern network of

Mozambique Ports and Railways Portos e Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique (abbreviated CFM; in English Mozambique Ports and Railways) is a state-owned company that oversees the railway system of Mozambique and its connected ports. The rail system is composed of a total of 2,9 ...

, connecting the

Goba railway Goba railway, also called Swaziland-Maputo railway and Matsapha-Maputo railway, is a railway that connects the city of Maputo, Mozambique, to the city from Matsapha, in Eswatini. It is 466.8 km long, in a 1067 mm gauge.Pretoria-Maputo railway. Coal is exported from here.

Geography

Matola Matola is the largest suburb of the Mozambique capital, Maputo, adjacent to its westernmost side. It is the nation's most populated city. Matola is the capital of Maputo Province and has had its own elected municipal government since 1998. It ...

is also the name of a small river (some 30 km long), that makes the northern border of the Matola municipality, and flows into

Maputo Bay Maputo () is the Capital city, 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 (as of 2017) distributed ov ...

Demographics

Town twinning

Loures Loures () is a city and a municipality in Portugal which is part of the Lisbon District, District and Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Metropolitan area of Lisbon. It is the fifth most populous municipality in the country, with a total population of 201, ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

(since 1996) *

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

References

Populated places in Maputo Province Provincial capitals in Mozambique {{Mozambique-geo-stub