Lilongwe & the Central Region

Among the oldest traces of people in the Central Region are the red paintings in the rock shelters of the Chongoni hills near Dedza, attributed to the BaTwa hunter-gatherers. Bantu-speaking farmers followed, and from around the fifteenth century the Chewa-speaking Maravi chiefdoms, from which the name Malawi is taken, spread across the plateau west and south of the lake.

The nineteenth century was violent. Ngoni armies from the south settled in the Dedza and Ntcheu highlands and raided their neighbours, while Nkhotakota on the lakeshore became a market for Swahili-Arab slave traders under Chief Jumbe. David Livingstone met Jumbe there and urged him to end the slave trade. Britain took the area into its protectorate in the 1890s, and Lilongwe began as a boma set up by the local leader Njewa around 1902, becoming an administrative centre in 1904.

The region's modern story is closely tied to Hastings Kamuzu Banda, born in Kasungu district, who led Malawi from independence in 1964 until 1994. He chose Lilongwe to replace Zomba as the capital, and the move, partly financed by South Africa, was completed in 1975, turning a market town into a planned city. Banda founded the Kamuzu Academy near Kasungu, a boarding school that taught Latin and Greek. He was buried in Lilongwe in 1997. The Constitutional Court's 2020 annulment of the presidential election was heard in the capital, and Lilongwe remains the stage for national politics and protest.

The Central Region is the heart of Chewa country, and Chichewa, the national language, is spoken here as a mother tongue. The Chewa are traditionally matrilineal, with land and village membership passing through the mother's line, and the Nyau societies that perform Gule Wamkulu, the masked "great dance" recognised by UNESCO, are active in these villages. Their dancers appear at funerals and other ceremonies in full-body masked costumes, and uninitiated outsiders are expected to keep a respectful distance.

The Kungoni Centre of Culture and Art at Mua mission, in Dedza district, was set up by a Catholic White Father to train local carvers, who produce much-admired wooden sculpture, and it runs the Chamare Museum of local culture. The Maseko Ngoni of Ntcheu keep their own royal line. Catholic and Presbyterian churches, the country's largest, dominate the plateau, alongside a Muslim minority. Market days, church choirs and weddings are the great social events.

About 7.5 million people live in the Central Region, close to the Southern Region's total. Lilongwe, with about a million people, is the largest city in the country, a sprawl of numbered "areas" — the Old Town's markets, the ministries and embassies of Capital Hill, and fast-growing informal suburbs. Kasungu, Salima, Dedza, Ntcheu and Nkhotakota are the other main towns.

Tobacco is the region's cash crop: leaf grown on the plateau around Kasungu and Lilongwe is stored and sold at Kanengo, the industrial area on the capital's northern edge. Most rural families grow maize, groundnuts and soya beans, and fishing supports the villages around Senga Bay. Government, aid agencies and their suppliers drive the capital's economy.

The day begins early, with minibuses crowding into Lilongwe from the surrounding districts and markets opening at dawn. Rising prices, fuel queues and the city's rapid, unplanned growth are constant worries.

Central Malawian eating is built around nsima, a stiff porridge of white maize flour eaten by hand with ndiwo, a relish of beans, pumpkin or bean leaves, tomatoes and onion, or chicken or goat on special days. Groundnuts, grown widely on the plateau, are pounded into sauces for leaves and eaten roasted as a snack. On the lakeshore at Senga Bay and Nkhotakota, chambo tilapia is grilled or fried whole, and heaps of usipa, the lake's small silvery fish, are sun-dried on racks and sold across the region.

Potatoes, vegetables and fruit reach Lilongwe's markets from the surrounding districts, and roadside stalls on the M1 sell roasted maize cobs and sweet potatoes. For drinks, thobwa, a sweet, lightly fermented maize or millet drink, is served at gatherings; chibuku sorghum beer and bottled lager are the common beers; and kachasu, a strong home-distilled spirit, is sold in village bars.

Lilongwe is a working capital rather than a showpiece, but the Old Town market, the craft stalls, the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre, a rescue sanctuary for injured and orphaned animals in the woodland of Lilongwe National Park, and the Kamuzu Mausoleum near Parliament are worth a day. Northwest, towards the Zambian border, Kasungu National Park protects a large area of miombo woodland with elephants, antelope and hippos, and is being restocked after years of poaching.

South of the capital, Dedza is the region's highland town, with Dedza Pottery's workshop and café, walks up Dedza Mountain and the painted shelters of the Chongoni Rock-Art Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the surrounding hills. The Kungoni Centre at Mua lies below the escarpment towards the lake.

On Lake Malawi, Senga Bay near Salima is the weekend beach of many from Lilongwe, with sandy shores and fishing villages. Further north, Nkhotakota has the tree where David Livingstone met Chief Jumbe, and inland from it the Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve, managed by African Parks since 2015, holds the elephants moved there from Liwonde and Majete, along with rivers and forested hills.