Angónia District is a

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

in the northern part of

Tete Province Tete is a Provinces of Mozambique, province of Mozambique, located in the northwest of the country. It has an area of 98,417 km2 and a population of 2,648,941 (2017 census). Tete, Mozambique, Tete is the capital of the province. The Cahora ...

in the central region of

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

. Its administrative center is the town of Ulongué. The district is located in the northwest of the province, and borders with

Dedza District Dedza is a Districts of Malawi, district in the Central Region, Malawi, Central Region of Malawi. It covers an area of 3,754 km.² to the south of the Malawi capital, Lilongwe, between Mozambique and Lake Malawi and has a population of 830,51 ...

Malawi Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...

in the north,

Ntcheu District Ntcheu is a district in the Central Region of Malawi. It borders with the country of Mozambique. The district headquarters is Ntcheu, known as BOMA in the local language, but is most commonly called Mphate. It is run by Yeneya, the village head ...

of Malawi in the east, Tsangano District in the south, and with Macanga District in the west. The area of the district is . It has a population of 335,808 as of 2007.

Geography

The district is mountainous; the principal mountains are Monte Dómuè (), Macungua (), and Chirobwé (). According to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

, the climate of the district is tropical humid (BSw), with large variations with altitude. The average rainfall in the district varies between and .

History

The name means "Angoni land". ''Angoni'' is the plural of ''Ngoni/Nguni'', migrant peoples from

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

after the disintegration of Zulu Empire in the nineteenth century. The language spoken in the district is

Chichewa Chewa ( ; also known as Nyanja ) is a Bantu language spoken in Malawi and a recognised minority in Zambia and Mozambique. The noun class prefix ''chi-'' is used for languages, so the language is often called or Chinyanja. In Malawi, the name wa ...

, though others would call it Chingoni. Chichewa seems more probable because when Nguni arrived in the region there already were people there called Achewa. As warriors, the Nguni mostly killed Achewa males and married Achewa women. Their children spent most of their time with their mothers and ended up learning their mothers' language (Chichewa) and not the language of their fathers, as the fathers were away hunting or fighting.

Demographics

As of 2005, 47% of the population of the district was younger than 15 years. 11% of the population spoke Portuguese. 81% were analphabetic, mostly women.

Administrative divisions

The district is divided into two postos, Ulongué (six localities) and Dómuè (eleven localities).

Economy

1% of the households in the district have access to electricity.

Agriculture

In the district, there are 65,000 farms which have on average of land. The main agricultural products are corn,

cassava ''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although ...

cowpea The cowpea (''Vigna unguiculata'') is an annual herbaceous legume from the genus '' Vigna''. Its tolerance for sandy soil and low rainfall have made it an important crop in the semiarid regions across Africa and Asia. It requires very few inpu ...

, peanut, sweet potato, and tobacco. Angónia is a plateau and relatively rich in agricultural and animal resources with very arable soils. After independence in 1975, Angónia was considered one of the granaries of Mozambique because of its production of

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

and

potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

es, a prestige which ended with the civil war. The climate is cool in winter and warm/mild in summer.

Transportation

There is a road network in the district which is long and includes a stretch of the national road EN223.

Education

Angonia has one of Mozambique's highest number of schools with three secondary schools and one high school (11 and 12 year). It also has one teachers' training college, the Instituto de Magistério Primário de Angónia (IMAP). And recently a CCAP church introduced a Bachelor of Theology course at their Instituto Cristão de Moçambique-College.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Angonia District Districts in Tete Province