Central Region (Malawi)

The Central Region of Malawi is with an area of ​​35,592 km ² and with nearly 5.5 million inhabitants, with the largest, but after inhabitants, the second largest of the three administrative divisions that between the state underlying at the top level and the respective districts on the level are located. Each region is represented by a Regional Administrator. The administrative capital of the Central Region is the 669 021 inhabitants, the country's capital Lilongwe.

Geography

The Central Region is bounded on the west by Zambia and Mozambique, in the north of the Northern Region and on the east by Lake Malawi. To the south is bordered by Mozambique and the Southern region.

There are five agro-ecological regions in Malawi, one of which is partly in the Central are full and one region. The Central Plains with their medium altitudes is in the middle of Malawi and runs a wide area around Lilongwe around up to Kasungu district. The other region is the lake shore region of Lake Malawi, which extends in Nordsüdausdehnung across all three regions.

Districts

The Central Region has been divided into nine districts that listed from north to south from

• Kasungu with 616 085 inhabitants,
• Nkhotakota with 301 868 inhabitants,
• Ntchisi with 224 098 inhabitants,
• Dowa with 556 678 inhabitants,
• Mchinji with 456 558 inhabitants,
• Lilongwe with 1,228,146 inhabitants,
• Salima with 340 327 inhabitants,
• Dedza with 623 789 inhabitants and
• Ntcheu made ​​with 474 464 inhabitants.

The districts are led by a District Development Committee ( DDC) chaired by a District Commissioner. The political decision-making is decentralized in these districts and in the larger cities in so-called town or city assemblies instead, but not at the regional level.

Population

The 2008 Census determined the 5,491,034 inhabitants of the Central Region constitute from 42 % of the total population of Malawi. The Central Region is an average of 154 inhabitants per km ² in terms of population density of the country in the midfield. 49.1% are male and 50.9 % female, but only 47.5 % of the population is 18 years and older. The high number of children in the total population is on the one hand by the high population increase of 35 % in the years 1998-2008 and is but on the other hand also caused by the high death rate due to HIV / AIDS in the adult population. Only 34.2 % of women and 29.9 % of men have currently sufficient knowledge about HIV prevention.

65.1 % of children up to 17 years living with both parents. 14.7% do not live with their biological parents, and 10.2 % are orphans who have lost one or both parents.

The official languages ​​in the region are English and Chichewa.

Economy

Tobacco growing is for Malawi to be the largest source of income in 2006 there were about 375,000 small farmers from growing tobacco, enough to cover 68 % of the export earnings of the country from. Although tobacco is grown throughout the country, but the cultivation and processing has focused in recent years more and more in the Central Region and specifically here in Kasungu. The largest tobacco auction market is in Kanengo, outside Lilongwe.

The Tea cultivation plays in the Central Region does not matter, the coffee growing only a subordinate. In the districts of Dedza and Ntchisi coffee is mainly grown by small farmers.

Cassava (manioc ) is preferably cultivated by the people along the Lake Malawi as a staple food for their own consumption and thus competes with corn. The cassava root is also considered the so-called "cash food", with which you can easily and quickly earn some money on the markets .. For the industrial use of cassava tuber, a plant was built in 2006 for the manufacture of starch in Nkhotakota. Another smaller factory is located in the capital, Lilongwe.

The 17,000 tons of soybeans per year are harvested in the districts of Kasungu and Ntchisi. Peanuts are also grown in Kasungu and also to Lilongwe around.

One of the most promising projects for energy could be the rather simple production of fuel from the oil of Jatropha trees in the coming years. This, more than two million trees have been planted in the last two years. In order to reduce dependence on oil imports, Malawi since 1982 ethanol from sugar itself, the production of 11.8 million liters per year spread over the two production sites near Dwangwa in Nkhotakota district and Chikwawa in the Southern Region.