Inhambane

Province

Inhambane is the capital of the Mozambican province of Inhambane and has 63 837 inhabitants ( 2007).

Geography

Inhambane is located at the mouth of the Rio Matumba. It is as Cidade de Inhambane directly subordinate to the province. The bay of Inhambane here ranges deep into the mainland. It forms a natural harbor. To municipalidad de Inhambane and the seaside resorts of Praia da Barra include (20 km northeast) and Praia do Tofo (24 km east).

Important buildings

In the city there are many old and historic buildings. The city was largely spared by the civil war and is now a tourist destination. The Nossa Senhora de Conceicão Cathedral is the seat of the Diocese of Inhambane. Comes the old mosque on the northern shore of the bay from the year 1840. Elsewhere, a new mosque has been built in the meantime.

The historic train station was restored in 2010 and is used as an administrative building, about 35 km long track connection to the main line to Maputo was already dismantled the mid-2000s.

History

Inhambane is one of the oldest cities in Mozambique. Here landed the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama on January 10, 1498 for the first time on the East African coast. He named the place Terra da Boa Gente, "land of friendly people ." How Pemba Quelimane in the north and center of the country Inhambane was probably as early as the 11th century, an important trading center of the Arab navigators. In the 17th and 18th centuries Inhambane developed into a trading center for ivory. The city experienced during this time their commercial peak. Under the Portuguese colonial rule, about 15,000 slaves were also shipped per year from Inhambane in the wedding.

Inhambane lost its importance as a trading center for the south of Mozambique Lourenço Marques (today Maputo ) in 1898 Capital Portuguese East Africa was. In the 1950s, a 400- km-long road from Lourenço Marques was built to Inhambane, which made the port sink into utter insignificance. Today it is used only by the fishery.

On August 12, 1956 Inhambane became a town.

Air table

Economy and Transport

The Inhambane International Airport is served in scheduled service daily from Maputo and several times a week from Johannesburg. In addition, various South African airlines lead in the peak season by charter flights also from Cape Town and Durban. After maxixe, the largest city in the province of Inhambane, Daus go in ferry several times a hour over the 3 km wide bay.

Sons and daughters of the town

• Rui Knopfli (1932-1997), writer and poet.