Tete, Mozambique
Tete | |
|---|---|
 One-kilometre-long suspension bridge over the Zambezi River | |
| Country |  Mozambique |
| Province | Tete Province |
| District | Cidade de Tete |
| Population (2007) | |
| • Total | 155,909 |
Tete is the capital city of Tete Province in Mozambique. It is located on the Zambezi River, and is the site of only one of three bridges across the river in the entire country. A Swahili trade center before the Portuguese colonial era, Tete continues to dominate the west-central part of the country and region, and is the largest city on the Zambezi. Tete is a word for "reed." In recent years the city has seen a huge influx of people from all corners of the world as it prepares itself to become the coal capital of the world.
History
The region was an important Swahili trade center before the Portuguese colonial era. On the east coast of Africa the Portuguese were drawn to Mozambique and the Zambezi river by news of a local ruler, the Munhumutapa, who was said to have had fabulous wealth in gold. In their efforts to reach the Munhumutapa, the Portuguese established in 1531 two settlements far up the Zambezi – one of them, at Tete, some 260 miles from the sea. The Munhumutapa Kingdom and gold mines remained autonomous and mostly isolated from the Portuguese. But in this region of east Africa – as in Portuguese Guinea and Angola in the west – Portuguese involvement became sufficiently strong to survive into the third quarter of the 20th century. Under Portuguese influence Tete had become a market centre for ivory and gold by the mid-17th century. Given a Portuguese town charter in 1761, it became a city of the Portuguese Overseas Province of Mozambique in 1959. After the Portuguese Colonial War in Portuguese Africa and the April 1974 military coup in Lisbon, the then Portuguese Overseas Province of Mozambique become an independent state. The newly-independent People's Republic of Mozambique, created in 1975 after the exodus of Mozambique's ethnic Portuguese, descended into civil war between 1977 and 1992.
Transportation
Chingozi Airport (IATA: TET, ICAO: FQTT) on the northeastern side of the city has a 2.4 km paved runway. The one-kilometre-long Tete Suspension Bridge, finished in 1973 by the Portuguese and designed by Edgar Cardoso, is a vital link on the major highway linking not just the northern and southern parts of the country, but Zimbabwe and Malawi as well. This bridge, the rail Dona Ana Bridge, and the Armando Emilio Guebuza Bridge at Caia are the only bridges across the lower Zambezi.
The concession to build a new road bridge across the Zambezi just south of Cidade de Tete has been awarded by the government to detour the heavy truck traffic between Zimbabwe and the port of Beira to Zambia and Malawi away from the city center.[1]
Demographics
| Year | Population[2] |
|---|---|
| 1986 | 56,178 |
| 1997 | 104,832 |
| 2007 | 152,909 |
| 2008 | 155,870 |
Climate
| Climate data for Tete | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 43 (109) |
43 (109) |
43 (109) |
43 (109) |
40 (104) |
39 (102) |
36 (97) |
40 (104) |
44 (111) |
45 (113) |
46 (115) |
44 (111) |
46 (115) |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 33.5 (92.3) |
33.2 (91.8) |
33.3 (91.9) |
32.7 (90.9) |
31.0 (87.8) |
28.6 (83.5) |
29.0 (84.2) |
30.5 (86.9) |
33.6 (92.5) |
35.8 (96.4) |
36.2 (97.2) |
34.5 (94.1) |
32.7 (90.8) |
| Daily mean °C (°F) | 28.5 (83.3) |
28.2 (82.8) |
28.1 (82.6) |
27.1 (80.8) |
24.7 (76.5) |
22.3 (72.1) |
22.3 (72.1) |
23.9 (75.0) |
26.9 (80.4) |
29.2 (84.6) |
30.0 (86.0) |
29.1 (84.4) |
26.7 (80.1) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 23.4 (74.1) |
23.2 (73.8) |
22.8 (73.0) |
21.4 (70.5) |
18.3 (64.9) |
16.0 (60.8) |
15.6 (60.1) |
17.3 (63.1) |
20.2 (68.4) |
22.6 (72.7) |
23.8 (74.8) |
23.6 (74.5) |
20.7 (69.2) |
| Record low °C (°F) | 7 (45) |
8 (46) |
9 (48) |
11 (52) |
10 (50) |
7 (45) |
8 (46) |
9 (48) |
10 (50) |
10 (50) |
10 (50) |
11 (52) |
7 (45) |
| Average precipitation mm (inches) | 166.7 (6.56) |
142.1 (5.59) |
95.5 (3.76) |
15.0 (0.59) |
5.8 (0.23) |
3.5 (0.14) |
2.9 (0.11) |
1.8 (0.07) |
0.8 (0.03) |
10.8 (0.43) |
45.6 (1.80) |
139.4 (5.49) |
629.9 (24.8) |
| Average precipitation days | 10.8 | 9.2 | 6.6 | 2.4 | 0.9 | 1.2 | 1.0 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 1.1 | 4.4 | 9.6 | 47.8 |
| Average relative humidity (%) | 69 | 73 | 67 | 61 | 60 | 61 | 59 | 54 | 47 | 43 | 54 | 62 | 59 |
| Mean monthly sunshine hours | 201.5 | 192.1 | 235.6 | 240.0 | 254.2 | 243.0 | 235.6 | 272.8 | 267.0 | 282.1 | 249.0 | 204.6 | 2,877.5 |
| Source 1: World Meteorological Organization,[3] Weltwetter Spiegel Online (sun and relative humidity)[4] | |||||||||||||
| Source 2: BBC Weather [5] | |||||||||||||
References
- ^ "Mozambique: Concession for New Bridge Over the Zambez". Retrieved 2008-08-06.
- ^ "Mozambique: largest cities and towns and statistics of their population". World Gazetteer. Retrieved 2008-06-18.
- ^ "World Weather Information Service - Tete". World Meteorological Organization. Retrieved December 7, 2012.
- ^ "Klimadaten - Tete" (in German). Retrieved December 7, 2012.
- ^ "Average Conditions Tete, Mozambique". BBC Weather. Retrieved December 7, 2012.
