Central Region, Malawi — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Central Region known for?

It is capital of Central Region and capital of Malawi, which makes one city the seat of both the regional administration and the national government of the whole country. Lake Malawi supplies the region's outlet. Zambia and Mozambique border the region, and the Chewa people form its majority.

Fairly flat terrain covers a section of the high plateau of central Africa.

Where is Central Region?

The plateau is the fact under everything. Terrain across Central Region reads as fairly flat, and that flatness disguises what the ground actually is: a section of the high plateau of central Africa, held well above sea level across its whole width. Lake Malawi closes the eastern side.

The region has an outlet on the lake, along the southern part of its eastern shores, which is the single stretch of water Central Region touches. Zambia takes one land boundary and Mozambique another. Those two countries hold the region's outer edges, so the limit of Central Region is in part an international one rather than a line drawn inside Malawi.

Lilongwe sits inside this ground. The city serves as capital of Central Region and as capital of Malawi, so one settlement carries both the regional seat and the national one across this stretch of plateau. Between the lake in the east and the borders with Zambia and Mozambique, Central Region covers a wide band of the country.

The Chewa people are the majority across it. Ground of this kind, level to the eye and high in fact, is what separates Central Region from the lower country beside Lake Malawi.

What is Central Region like?

The Chewa are the majority people here. That single fact carries more weight than any other in describing Central Region, since the Chewa presence extends across the whole span from Lilongwe eastward to Lake Malawi and westward to the Zambia boundary. English serves the visitor.

It is the language a traveller will use in Lilongwe, and it works the same way through the rest of the region, where the Chewa majority lives alongside it. Lilongwe holds the country's offices as well as the region's. One city answers to two levels of government.

Central Region names Lilongwe as its capital, and Malawi names the same city as the national capital, so the regional administration and the national one occupy a single place on the plateau. The overlap shows in Lilongwe. Arrivals into Malawi and arrivals into Central Region are frequently the same arrivals, and the character of the city reflects a role that is national before it is regional.

Lake Malawi runs along the far side. The region's outlet on the lake, on the southern part of its eastern shores, is the one water feature that separates this part of the country from the plateau ground stretching toward Zambia and Mozambique.

What is the history of Central Region?

No founding date attaches to the region. Central Region exists as one of the administrative divisions of Malawi, and the record that describes it reaches for people and boundaries rather than for a charter year or a founding act. The Chewa are the long-settled majority.

Their position is the oldest thing the record states plainly about this ground, and it holds from the shore of Lake Malawi to the lines shared with Zambia and Mozambique. Lilongwe answers as capital to both.

What is the climate of Central Region?

Altitude works against the tropics here. Central Region sits within the tropical band, but the ground belongs to the high plateau of central Africa, and that elevation is the agent that tempers what the tropics would otherwise deliver. Lake Malawi lies on the eastern side.

Any large body of water steadies the air above it, so the region's outlet on the lake reads differently from the open plateau running west toward Zambia. Seasons here belong to the southern hemisphere.

How do you get to Central Region?

Lilongwe is the point of arrival. As capital of Malawi and of Central Region at once, the city is where national and regional traffic meets, which makes it the practical entry for anyone heading anywhere inside the region. Two land borders offer the other way in.

Zambia adjoins the region on one side and Mozambique on another, so an overland approach can be made from either country without passing through the rest of Malawi. Lake Malawi closes the eastern side, and the region's outlet there is water rather than road.