Lake Malawi National Park is a national park at the southern end of

Lake Malawi Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is the fifth largest fr ...

Malawi Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeas ...

Southeast Africa Southeast Africa or Southeastern Africa is an African region that is intermediate between East Africa and Southern Africa. It comprises the countries Botswana, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania ...

. It is the only national park in Malawi that was created with the purpose of protecting fish and aquatic habitats. Despite this being its main purpose, Lake Malawi National Park includes a fair amount of land, including a headland, the

foreshore The intertidal zone, also known as the foreshore, is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide (in other words, the area within the tidal range). This area can include several types of habitats with various species ...

and several small rocky islands in Lake Malawi. Lake Malawi National Park was inscribed as a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

in 1984, being of "global importance for biodiversity conservation due particularly to its fish diversity." This fish diversity is remarkable because the '' mbuna'', as the cichlid fish are known locally, provide an outstanding example of evolution at work. Other attributes of the park include the outstanding natural beauty of the area, with its craggy landscape contrasting with the clear waters of the lake.

The site

Lake Malawi is in the

Great Rift Valley The Great Rift Valley is a series of contiguous geographic trenches, approximately in total length, that runs from Lebanon in Asia to Mozambique in Southeast Africa. While the name continues in some usages, it is rarely used in geology as it ...

. The lake is above sea level and, with a depth of in places, is one of the deepest lakes in the world. Lake Malawi National Park consists of approximately of land and water at the southern end of the lake. The park includes most of the Nankumbu Peninsula, a mountainous headland that projects northwards into the lake terminating in

Cape Maclear Cape Maclear or Chembe is a town in the Mangochi District of Malawi's Southern Region. The town, on the Nankumba Peninsula, is on the southern shore of Lake Malawi and is the busiest resort on Lake Malawi. Cape Maclear is close to the island ...

, the surrounding areas of water (aquatic zone of the property extends for just from the lake shore and covers just 0.02% of the lake’s total area), Mwenya Hills, Nkhudzi Hills, Nkhudzi Spit, and 13 islands: Otter, Domwe, Thumbi West, Mumbo, Zimbawe, Thumbi East, Mpanda, Boadzulu, Chinyankhwazi Rock, Chinyamwezi Rock, Nankoma, Maleri, and Nakantenga. The peninsula rises steeply from the foreshore to the Nkhunguni Peak in the west and the Dzimwe Peak in the east. The slopes are clad in dense forests. There are few inhabitants on the mountainous part of the peninsula, but there are several fishing villages on the more level parts of the foreshore, the largest being

Chembe Chembe is a border town in Chembe District in the Luapula Province of Zambia. It once had the Chembe Ferry as a means of crossing the Luapula River from DR Congo to Zambia; but now, it is the home of the Mwanawasa Bridge, named after former presid ...

, close to Cape Maclear. These villages are inside the park but are not part of it.

UNESCO World Heritage Site

Lake Malawi National Park was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. The criteria under which it qualifies are: Criterion (vii), the natural beauty of the lake beneath the escarpment of the Great African Rift Valley; Criterion (ix), the importance of the lake because of the adaptive radiation and speciation that has taken place there among the cichlid fish population, over 350 species of which are present in the park, almost all of them

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

; and Criterion (x), the global importance of the park for the conservation of biodiversity, both for its freshwater fish populations (perhaps 1000 species) and for the variety of other animal life including birds, mammals and reptiles.

Fauna

Lake Malawi was formed several million years ago, and the water level has fluctuated greatly over the millennia. This has made a number of different niches available to the cichlids (known locally as '' mbuna'') and other

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

living there, which have adapted to different habitats and adopted different lifestyles as part of an

evolutionary radiation An evolutionary radiation is an increase in taxonomic diversity that is caused by elevated rates of speciation, that may or may not be associated with an increase in morphological disparity. Radiations may affect one clade or many, and be rapid ...

of a similar sort to the adaptation of

finch The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are usua ...

es that

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

observed on the

Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands (Spanish: , , ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands. They are distributed on each side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, and are part of the Republic of Ecuador ...

. Various estimates have been made as to how many species of cichlid there are in Lake Malawi, with 700 being an acceptable estimate. Nearly all of these species are

, and some have minute ranges: a bay, a rocky islet or a few hundred metres of shoreline. Many are not even known to science and remain yet to be described. The park is also home to mammals including

chacma baboon The chacma baboon (''Papio ursinus''), also known as the Cape baboon, is, like all other baboons, from the Old World monkey family. It is one of the largest of all monkeys. Located primarily in southern Africa, the chacma baboon has a wide vari ...

vervet monkey The vervet monkey (''Chlorocebus pygerythrus''), or simply vervet, is an Old World monkey of the family Cercopithecidae native to Africa. The term "vervet" is also used to refer to all the members of the genus ''Chlorocebus''. The five distinct ...

hippopotamus The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extan ...

es, leopards,

common duiker The common duiker (''Sylvicapra grimmia''), also known as the grey or bush duiker, is a small antelope and the only member of the genus ''Sylvicapra''. This species is found everywhere in Africa south of the Sahara, excluding the Horn of Africa ...

bushbuck The Cape bushbuck (''Tragelaphus sylvaticus'') is a common and a widespread species of antelope in sub-Saharan Africa.Wronski T, Moodley Y. (2009)Bushbuck, harnessed antelope or both? ''Gnusletter'', 28(1):18-19. Bushbuck are found in a wide ra ...

greater kudu The greater kudu (''Tragelaphus strepsiceros'') is a woodland antelope found throughout eastern and southern Africa. Despite occupying such widespread territory, they are sparsely populated in most areas due to declining habitat, deforestation, ...

s, and

klipspringer The klipspringer (; ''Oreotragus oreotragus'') is a small antelope found in eastern and southern Africa. The sole member of its genus and subfamily/tribe, the klipspringer was first described by German zoologist Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zim ...

s. Also to be seen are crocodiles,

African fish eagle The African fish eagle (''Haliaeetus vocifer'') or the African sea eagle, is a large species of eagle found throughout sub-Saharan Africa wherever large bodies of open water with an abundant food supply occur. It is the national bird of Malawi, Na ...

s, and

white-breasted cormorant The white-breasted cormorant (''Phalacrocorax lucidus'') is much like the widespread great cormorant and if not a regional variant of the same species, is at least very closely related. It is distinguished from other forms of the great cormorant ...

s as well as

wading birds 245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflat ...

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

s, hornbills,

nightjar Nightjars are medium-sized nocturnal or crepuscular birds in the family Caprimulgidae and order Caprimulgiformes, characterised by long wings, short legs, and very short bills. They are sometimes called goatsuckers, due to the ancient folk tal ...

kestrel The term kestrel (from french: crécerelle, derivative from , i.e. ratchet) is the common name given to several species of predatory birds from the falcon genus ''Falco''. Kestrels are most easily distinguished by their typical hunting behaviou ...

s, swallow-tailed bee-eaters, and many other species of birds.

History

Dr.

David Livingstone David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of t ...

was the first European to see Lake Nyassa, as it was then called, in 1859, and by 1875 the Scottish Presbyterian Church had set up a mission on Cape Maclear. A large

baobab ''Adansonia'' is a genus made up of eight species of medium-to-large deciduous trees known as baobabs ( or ). They are placed in the Malvaceae family, subfamily Bombacoideae. They are native to Madagascar, mainland Africa, and Australia.Trop ...

tree, purportedly over 800 years old, is said to have been a favourite of Livingstone as a place where he could give sermons and speak with other missionaries. The graves of five early missionaries are also in the park.

Gallery

File:Lake Malawi National Park-109871.jpg, Canoes on the beach File:Lake Malawi National Park-109873.jpg, View of marsh File:Lake Malawi National Park-109869.jpg, Skiffs on the beach

References

External links

UNESCO Lake Malawi National Park

{{authority control National parks of Malawi World Heritage Sites in Malawi Lake Malawi Protected areas established in 1980 Geography of Southern Region, Malawi Geography of Central Region, Malawi