Maputo, Mozambique

Formerly known as Lourenço Marques, Maputo is the capital and largest city of Mozambique. Its location on the Indian Ocean has led to an economy centered on the harbor. Coal, cotton, sugar, chromites, sisal, copra, and hardwood are the chief exports. Maputo has a strong South African influence as well as Bantu, Portuguese, Arab, Indian and Chinese cultures. Lourenço Marques was named after the Portuguese navigator sent in 1544 by the governor of Mozambique to explore. The various Portuguese forts and trading stations established, abandoned and reoccupied on the north bank of the river were destroyed by the natives and the existing town dates from about 1850. In 1895, construction of a railroad to Pretoria, South Africa caused the city's population to grow. Served by British, Portuguese and German liners in the early 1900s, the harbor was well equipped and enabled these vessels to discharge their cargo into the railway trucks. Primary and secondary schools followed in the 1940s, along with commercial and industrial trade schools and the first university opened in 1962. The Portuguese, Islamic, Indian and Chinese communities achieved great prosperity, but the largely unskilled African majority did not. In 1962 the formation of the Mozambique Liberation Front fought for independence from Portuguese rule. The Mozambican War of Independence ended in 1974 when the government of Portugal granted independence to all Portuguese overseas territories. The People's Republic of Mozambique was proclaimed on June 25, 1975 and the city’s name changed to Maputo. Over 250,000 ethnic Portuguese left the area, virtually overnight, and the newly-independent country had no skilled professionals to maintain its infrastructure. The economy plummeted. The governing party turned to the communist Soviet Union and East Germany for help, but by the early 1980s the country was bankrupt. The Civil War, which lasted until 1992, further weakened the economy, but with the end of the war growth and stability returned. Today, tourism is certainly playing a part in boosting the economy.