Triangle is a small town in

Masvingo Province Masvingo, previously named Victoria, is a province in southeastern Zimbabwe. It has a population of 1.638 million as of the 2022 census, ranking fifth out of Zimbabwe's ten provinces. Established by the British South Africa Company, it was one o ...

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

, and is located 125 km south-east from

Masvingo Masvingo, known as Fort Victoria during the colonial period, is a city in southeastern Zimbabwe and the capital of Masvingo Province. The city lies close to Great Zimbabwe, the national monument from which the country takes its name and clos ...

, between Ngundu Growth Point and Chiredzi. The town is located in the district of Chiredzi, one of the seven in Masvingo Province. The town of Triangle is so named because when Murray MacDougall first tried to grow sugar cane, only three pieces of sugar cane grew, He said he could only do one thing with them and that was to make a triangle. It was the first attempt to grow sugar cane in Rhodesia now Zimbabwe.

Background

The town developed around Tongaat Hulett's Triangle Estate, Zimbabwe's 2nd largest

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

scheme, rivaling Hippo Valley Estate.

Triangle Estate

In the company's fields, 13,500ha of

sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

and are under irrigation and there is a large

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

mill on the estate. Sugar cane was first planted in the region in 1931 by Thomas Murray McDougall and was first processed in 1939. Due to the economic decline the country is going through, like at Hippo Valley, production of sugar has fallen in recent years. The decline in production has been compounded by a large body of displaced farmers who have settled on some of its productive fields, further hampering production.Sugar production falls (accessed 19 June 2010) At formation of the Sugar Estates, much of the labour to work the land was brought in from neighbouring Malawi and Zambia. These labourers came in to work on the sugar cane plantations as general labourers and cane cutters. As a result of intermarriages between the local Karanga, Shangaan and the plantation workers who were predominantly foreigners, this has resulted in the mix of ethnicities and cultures in Triangle and the Southern districts of Zimbabwe. The majority of the town's residents are employed by the company.

Sports

First-class

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

has been played in Triangle at the well-established cricket venue located in the town. There is also a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

club called Triangle United.

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=August 2019 Populated places in Masvingo Province