Mount Yao is a mountain in northern
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 ...
. It is located in
Niassa Province
Niassa is a province of Mozambique with 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 450,00 ...
, in
Niassa National Reserve. The mountain is named for the
Yao people
The Yao people () or Dao () is a classification for various ethnic minorities in China and Vietnam. Their majority branch is also known as Mien. They originated in the areas around Changsha, which today is the capital of Hunan province. They s ...
who live in the area around the mountain.
Mount Yao is an isolated granite outcrop or
inselberg
An inselberg or monadnock ( ) is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain.
In Southern Africa, a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, an ...
, and is relatively isolated from other mountains.
Mount Mecula
Mount Mecula ( Portuguese: ''Serra Mecula'') is a mountain in northern Mozambique. It is located in Niassa Province, near the center of Niassa National Reserve.
Mount Mecula is an isolated granite outcrop or inselberg, and is relatively isolate ...
is located to 128 km to the northeast in the national reserve.
[ The Njesi Highlands lie to the west.
]Miombo woodland
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) charac ...
is the predominant plant community on the mountain. The mountain has patches of evergreen forest and swamp forest at higher elevations, and riparian forest
A riparian forest or riparian woodland is a forested or wooded area of land adjacent to a body of water such as a river, stream, pond, lake, marshland, estuary, canal, Sink (geography), sink, or reservoir. Due to the broad nature of the definitio ...
corridors in stream valleys descend to 1000 meters elevation.[ The flowering plant '' Moraea niassensis'', an iris relative, is endemic to the mountain.][Goldblatt, P., Manning, J., Von Blittersdorff, R., & Weber, O. (2014). New species of Gladiolus L. and Moraea Mill. (Iridaceae) from Tanzania and Mozambique. ''Kew Bulletin'', 69(2), 1-8. Retrieved February 11, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24637549]
References
{{reflist
Yao
Eastern miombo woodlands
Geography of Niassa Province