Lilongwe

Lilongwe is the capital of Malawi, on the Lilongwe River in the central plain of the country. The city takes its name from the river, and it is laid out in separate areas with numbers instead of district names.

A village of Chewa farmers stood on the river before the colonial government set up an administrative post there in 1904. Lying on the road between the north and the south, it grew into a market town for the tobacco and maize of the Central Region. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the first president, chose Lilongwe as the new capital in place of Zomba, and the government moved there in 1975. The new city was planned with green belts along the river, while the old town kept its shops on the south bank.

Tobacco from farms across the Central Region is sold at the auction floors in Kanengo, in the north of the city. The farmland around Lilongwe also grows maize, groundnuts and soya beans for the markets of the country. Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, at Bunda on the edge of the city, trains agronomists and runs research farms.

The Lilongwe Wildlife Centre, set in a forest in the middle of the city, cares for rescued and orphaned wild animals, among them monkeys and antelopes. The main market of the old town, beside the river, sells fresh produce, chitenje cloth and secondhand clothes. Bingu National Stadium, opened in the 2010s, is the home ground of the Malawi national football team, the Flames. To the southwest, the Dzalanyama Forest Reserve covers a range of hills with miombo woodland that is known for its birds.