Mbeya Region (''Mkoa wa Mbeya'' in

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language officially used in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes. * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa. * Swahili culture, the culture of the Swahili p ...

) is one of

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

's 31 administrative

regions In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

. The region covers an area of . The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation state of

Guinea Bissau Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa that covers with an estimated population of 2,026,778. It borders Senegal to its north and Guinea to its southeast. Guinea-Bissau was once part of the kin ...

. Mbeya Region is bordered to the east by

Singida Region Singida Region (''Mkoa wa Singida'' in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative Regions of Tanzania, regions. The region covers a land area of . The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation sta ...

Iringa Region Iringa Region (''Mkoa wa Iringa'' in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 Regions of Tanzania, administrative regions. The region covers an area of . The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation state of ...

and

Njombe Region Njombe Region (''Mkoa wa Njombe'' in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative Regions of Tanzania, regions which covers a land area of . The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation state of El ...

. The region is bordered to the south by

Malawi Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...

and

Lake Nyasa Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, () is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is the fourth largest ...

. To the north the region borders southern

Tabora Region Tabora Region (''Mkoa wa Tabora'' in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative Regions of Tanzania, regions located in mid-western part of Tanzania. The regional capital is the municipality of Tabora. Tabora is bordered ...

. Lastly, Mbeya is bordered to the west by

Songwe Region Songwe Region (''Mkoa wa Songwe'' in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative Regions of Tanzania, regions. The region covers a land area of . The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation state ...

. The regional capital is the city of

Mbeya Mbeya is a city located in south west Tanzania, Africa, with an urban population of 649,000 in 2023. Mbeya is the capital of the surrounding rural Mbeya Region, Mbeya region (population, with Mbeya, totals approx. 2 million). Mbeya is situated a ...

. According to the 2022 national census, the region had a population of 2,343,754.

Geography

Mbeya Region is located between latitudes 7 degrees and 9 degrees 31' south of the

equator The equator is the circle of latitude that divides Earth into the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Southern Hemisphere, Southern Hemispheres of Earth, hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, about in circumferen ...

and between longitudes 32 degrees and 35 degrees east of Greenwich in Tanzania's Southern Highlands Zone. The Republic of Malawi shares borders with the Mbeya Region to the south, Songwe Region to the west, Singida and Tabora Regions to the north, and Iringa and Njombe Regions to the east. Kasumulu in Kyela District serves as the primary entry and/or exit point into the Republic of Malawi, which is a neighboring country. The

Great Rift Valley The Great Rift Valley () is a series of contiguous geographic depressions, approximately 6,000 or in total length, the definition varying between sources, that runs from the southern Turkish Hatay Province in Asia, through the Red Sea, to Moz ...

created the majority of the places in the area, with the lowland elevation occupying the Western Rift Zone, which includes the Lake Rukwa and Lake Nyasa regions, and the Eastern Rift Zone, which includes the Usangu Plains and other sections of the Ruaha Trough. The heights range from above sea level at Lake Nyasa to more than at

Mount Rungwe Mount Rungwe is a volcanic mountain in Mbeya Region, in Tanzania's Southern Highlands, Tanzania, Southern Highlands. At an altitude of , it is southern Tanzania's second-highest peak. Rungwe's volcano is currently inactive. Geography Rungwe sta ...

's summit.

Hydrology

The Ruaha/ Rufiji Basin in the east, the inland

Lake Rukwa Lake Rukwa is an endorheic lake located in the Rukwa Valley of Rukwa Region, Songwe Region and Katavi Region in southwestern Tanzania. The lake is the third largest inland body of water in the country. Geography The alkaline Lake Rukwa lies ...

Basin in the north-west, and the Lake Nyasa Basin in the south are the three river basins that make up the Mbeya Region. The

surface runoff Surface runoff (also known as overland flow or terrestrial runoff) is the unconfined flow of water over the ground surface, in contrast to ''channel runoff'' (or ''stream flow''). It occurs when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other ...

pattern and the unimodal rainfall distribution closely match. Tanzania's Southern Plateau's south highlands serve as a watershed for the area's primary drainage system. The Great Ruaha, Zira, Songwe, Kiwira, Lufilyo, and Mbaka are some of the major rivers in the area. One of the inlets to the Indian Ocean, the Great Ruaha River is supplied by the Kimani, Chimala, Igurusi, and other tributaries. Rivers Kiwira, Lufilyo, and Mbaka drain south into Lake Nyasa, while rivers Zira and Songwe form an inland drainage into Lake Rukwa. Mbeya's surface area is , or about 4 percent of Tanzania's total . The region's entire surface area is made up of of water and of dry land. The smallest land areas belong to Mbeya City Council () and Busokelo District Council ().

Climate

The Mbeya Region has a

tropical climate Tropical climate is the first of the five major climate groups in the Köppen climate classification identified with the letter A. Tropical climates are defined by a monthly average temperature of or higher in the coolest month, featuring hot te ...

, with lowlands temperatures of and highlands temperatures of . The rainy season lasts from October to May. The

Usangu Plains The Usangu Plain is a lowland in south-central Tanzania. It is named for the Sangu people. Geography The Usangu Plain covers an area of 15,500 km2. It extends northeast-southwest, bounded on the south by the Udzungwa Mountains, and the Kipenge ...

and Chunya receive of rain annually, while the mountains of

Rungwe District Rungwe is a Districts of Tanzania, district in Mbeya Region, Tanzania. It is bordered to the north by Mbeya Rural, Mbeya Rural District, to the east by Iringa Region, to the southeast by Kyela, Kyela District, to the southwest by Ileje, Ileje Di ...

Council and the northern coasts of Lake Nyasa receive . June through September are the cold and dry months in the area. The soils and vegetation types in the area exhibit significant variance. Most of the region's arable land has soils with a medium texture, moderate fertility, and ranges from sandy loams to alluvial soils to cracked clays. The majority of the territory is covered with

Miombo Miombo woodland is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome (in the World Wide Fund for Nature scheme) located in central and southern tropical Africa. It includes three woodland savanna ecoregions (listed below) chara ...

woodland, with annual rainfall ranging from . Less rainy areas, particularly in the region's north, encourage the development of dense acacia and other thorny tree thickets as well as woodland grassland.

Geology

It was announced in February 2012 that the collapsed volcano approximately north of Mbeya, Mount Ngualla, contained one of the largest rare earth oxide deposits in the world.

Economy

Agriculture

Agriculture (crops and cattle), natural resources (forest, fish, wildlife, and minerals), tourism, and industrial growth are the key producing sectors of the Mbeya Region that serve as the main engines of the regional economy. The economic performance of the Mbeya Region are dominated by agriculture, which employs roughly 80% of the working population in the area and makes up about 40% of the regional economy. Agriculture consists primarily of peasant farming, with a limited amount of commercial production of

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

Mbarali District Mbarali District is one of the five districts of Mbeya Region, Tanzania. It is bordered to the north by Iringa region and east by Njombe region. To the south the district is bordered by Mbeya District and to the west by Chunya District. In ...

and

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...

. Tanzania's Mbeya Region is renowned for producing a wide range of food crops, including

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

, paddy, sorghum, beans, round potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava,

bananas A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – berry (botany), botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called pla ...

, groundnuts, simsim, fruits, and vegetables. From 2017 to 2019, the largest food producers were the Rungwe, Mbeya, and Mbarali District Councils, with annual production of 1,144,346.4 tonnes (37.2%) (Rungwe District Council), 530,064.8 tonnes (17.2%), and 490,644.3 tonnes (15.9%), respectively (Mbarali District Council). The primary crop of Mbeya is

potatoes The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

, which produce 925,266.9 tonnes. Maize comes in second with 669,079.8, followed by banana plantains (541,493.0 tonnes), paddy (396,044.8 tonnes), cassava (231,853.4 tonnes), and sweet potatoes (170,906.8 tonnes). Beans, wheat, sorghum, cow peas, and cocoyam are some more crops with an annual production below 100,000 tonnes.

Coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

, tea, tobacco,

pyrethrum ''Pyrethrum'' was a genus of several Old World plants now classified in either '' Chrysanthemum'' or '' Tanacetum'' which are cultivated as ornamentals for their showy flower heads. Pyrethrum continues to be used as a common name for plants form ...

, wheat, sunflower, spices, cocoa, and oil palm are the principal cash crops farmed in the area. Smallholder farmers are the principal producers of these crops. The Rungwe and Busokelo districts are primarily where tea, coffee, and spice crops are grown. In the Mbeya District, pyrethrum and wheat are produced; in the Kyela, Rungwe, and Busokelo districts, cocoa and

oil palm ''Elaeis'' () is a genus of palms, called oil palms, containing two species, native to Africa and the Americas. They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil. Description Mature palms are single-stemmed, and can gro ...

are primarily planted. Sunflower is grown in Mbarali and Chunya Districts, whereas

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

is primarily grown in Chunya District.

Industry

Small-scale agroindustrial and forestry-based businesses make up the majority of the Mbeya Region's industrial sector. 3,540 small businesses operated in the area in 2016, with more businesses engaged in milling (39.5%), carpentry (26.8%),

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

processing (11.5%), and welding (9.0%). 6,800 persons were employed overall by them. 13 medium-sized businesses operated in the area during that time, with Mbeya City accounting for 61.5 percent of all businesses in this category. There aren't many large-scale industries, but those that do exist include those that make

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 ...

, brew beer, process tea, make soft beverages, and produce

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

and

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

. Mbeya City Council is where the majority of industries are located, followed by Rungwe District Council. Mineral diversity is abundant in the Mbeya Region. The majority of minerals in the area have not yet been exploited and are currently being mined by small-scale operators using

artisanal An artisan (from , ) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art, sculpture, clothing, food ite ...

technologies.

Gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

, coal, sand, stones, morum, and industrial minerals including marble, limestone, iron ore, and phosphates are among the different types of minerals that may be found in the area. Additionally, the Mbeya District Council, Rungwe District, and Mbarali District also have significant marble reserves (Chalihumbi & Lugelele). Large gold reserves may be discovered across Chunya, Mbarali (Mabadaga), and Kyela (Mwalisi & Luvalisi).

Wildlife and Reserves

Wildlife can be found in great variety in the Mbeya Region. The area is home to two national parks ( Ruaha and Kitulo) and four game reserves namely; Mpanga Kipengere, Usungu, Rukwati Piti Game Reserve and Mount Rungwe Game Reserve. Natural open spaces including Rungwa Mzombe and Rungwa South, and a number of game restricted areas.

Demographics

The historic native tribes of the Mbeya region are of

Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle *Black Association for National ...

origin, and it is thought that they have lived there for a very long period. They are the Sangu, Safwa, Nyakyusa, Ndali, Kinga, Wanji, Lambya, Nyiha, Wungu, Kimbu & Rungwa. The Maasai and Sukuma now live in the Chunya and Mbeya Districts as a result of extensive interregional and intraregional movement of tribes between 1970 and 1990. In urban areas like Mbeya Municipality and the District centers, a fairly diverse tribal population is typical.

Population change post-independence

From 776,373 in the 1967 census to 1,080,241 in the 1978 census, the population of the Mbeya area increased at a pace of 3.3% per year, as opposed to an average of 3.4% per year during the 1957 and 1967 population census. By the time of the 1988 population census, there were 1,476,199 inhabitants in the country. This made Mbeya one of the most populous regions in Tanzania after

Shinyanga Shinyanga, also known as Mji wa Shinyanga in the national language, is a city in northern Tanzania. The city is the location of the regional headquarters of Shinyanga Region as well as the district headquarters of Shinyanga Urban District. The r ...

and

Mwanza Mwanza City, also known as Rock City to the residents, is a port city and capital of Mwanza Region on the southern shore of Lake Victoria in north-western Tanzania. With an urban population of 1,104,521 and a population of 3,699,872 in the region ...

, making up around 6% of the country's total population on the mainland. Mbeya is consequently one of the areas with rapid population expansion. Population growth was 3.1 percent, according to the census of 1988. According to a 3.1 percent yearly average growth rate from 1978 to 1988, the region's population is predicted to be 2.2 million people by the year 2000. According to the 2012 national census, the region had a population of 2,707,410, which was lower than the pre-census projection of 2,822,396.Population Distribution by Administrative Units, United Republic of Tanzania, 2013
For 2002-2012, the region's 2.7 percent average annual population growth rate was tied for the tenth highest in the country. It was also tied for the eighteenth most densely populated region with 45 people per square kilometre.

Administrative divisions

In 2016, the town of

Tunduma Tunduma is a city in Songwe Region, Tanzania, on the border between Tanzania and Zambia. It has border posts for both the Tanzam Highway and the TAZARA railway (for which it has a station) linking the two countries. It is located 103 km southwest ...

and the districts of

Ileje Ileje District is a Districts of Tanzania, district in Songwe Region, Tanzania. It is bordered to the north by Mbeya Urban and Rungwe District, Rungwe districts, to the east by Kyela District, to the northwest by Mbozi District and to the south by ...

, Mbozi, Momba and Songwe (created from the western part of

Chunya District Chunya District is one of the seven Districts of Tanzania, districts of Mbeya Region, Tanzania. It is bordered to the north by Tabora Region, to the northeast by Singida Region, to the east by Mbarali District, to the south by Mbeya Rural District ...

) were split from Mbeya Region to create

. Mbeya Region is now bordered to the northwest by

, to the northeast by

, to the east by

, to the south by

and

, and to the west by Songwe Region. Prior to the creation of Songwe Region, Mbeya Region covered an area of . It now covers an area of .

Districts

2012

In 2012, Mbeya Region was administratively divided into eight districts:

2016

After the 2016 reorganization, Mbeya Region now comprises seven districts:

National Parks

Kitulo National Park Kitulo National Park (''Hifadhi ya Taifa ya Kitulo'', in Swahili) is a national park of Tanzania, constituting a protected area of montane grassland and montane forest on the Kitulo Plateau in the southern highlands of Tanzania. The park is ...

* Lake Ngosi (Crater lake) * Matema Beach * Mount Rungwe Forest Reserve *

Ruaha National Park Ruaha National Park is a national park in Tanzania. In 2008, the Usangu Game Reserve and other important wetlands were added to the park, increasing its size to about . The park is about west of Iringa. The park is a part of the Rungwa-Kizigo- ...

Transport

Mbeya Region is accessible by Roads, rail, air and water through Lake Nyasa.

Airports

Mbeya Region is served by Songwe International Airport which is located in Mbeya district at Songwe area. Currently the only carrier which have scheduled flights i
Air Tanzania
with daily flights to Dar es salaam. There are also other chartered flights to other places such as

. TANZAM Highway (T1) which is part of the Great North road (A 104) pass through the region, it connects with

to the East and Songwe Region to the West. The B - 345 road connect the region with

to the south from Uyole. Chunya road connects the region with Singida and Tabora to the North-East and North-West respectively. Mbeya Region is bordered by Lake Nyasa to the South East. The lake is used for transport by Mbeya Region and the neighboring regions of Njombe, Ruvuma and the country of Malawi. Three ships, two cargo ships, MV ''Njombe'' and MV ''Ruvuma'', and one for passengers, MV ''Mbeya II'', are on final stages of construction and are expected to start operations at the end of 2019. The TAZARA rail pass through the region and connects which connects it to the Port city of

Dar es salaam Dar es Salaam (, ; from ) is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of the Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over 7 million people, Dar es Salaam is the largest city in East Africa by population and the ...

and Zambia.

Healthcare

A referral hospital is located in Mbeya City, and there are 336 public and private health care institutions spread throughout the Mbeya Region.

Notable people

* Prince Kagwema, writer * Albert Mangwea, musician * Joseph Mbilinyi, musician and politician * Tolly Mbwette, academic * Fadhy Mtanga, novelist *

Godfrey Mwakikagile Godfrey Mwakikagile (born 4 October 1949 in Kigoma) is a Tanzanian scholar and author specialising in African studies. He was also a news reporter for ''The Standard'' (later renamed the '' Daily News'') — the oldest and largest English new ...

, scholar and author * Harrison Mwakyembe, politician * Davis Mwamunyange, former chief of the Tanzanian Defence Forces * Mark Mwandosya, politician *

Christopher Mwashinga Christopher R. Mwashinga, Jr (born 9 January 1965) is a Tanzanian author and poet from Mbeya, Tanzania who lives in the United States. He has published books of Christian poetry, theology, mission, and religious history. His poetry has been p ...

, writer * Imani Sanga, music professor * Raymond Shaban, musician

References

External links

{{Authority control Regions of Tanzania