Tômbua (also spelled Tômbwa), formerly known as Porto Alexandre, is a

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

and

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

, in

Namibe Province Namibe Province is a Provinces of Angola, province of Angola. Under Portuguese Angola, Portuguese rule it was the Moçâmedes District. It has an area of 57,091 km2 and had a 2014 census population of 495,326. The port and city of Namibe, Mo ...

. The municipality has a population of 55,494 and the city has a population of 46,573 in 2014. It is located on the shore of

Porto Alexandre Porto (), also known in English as Oporto, is the second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipalit ...

, an important harbor on the

South Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

for oil production and fishing. The villages of

Yona The word Yona in Pali and the Prakrits, and the analogue Yavana in Sanskrit, were used in Ancient India to designate Greek speakers. "Yona" and "Yavana" are transliterations of the Greek word for "Ionians" (), who were probably the first Gr ...

and

Saint Martin of the Tigers In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

are part of the municipality of Tômbua.

Economy

The port had refrigeration facilities installed with

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

assistance at the Tombwe canning factory.Economic Report on Angola by the South African government
/ref> It was during Portuguese Angola the largest fishing port of Angola and one of the largest in West Africa. It was established by fishermen from

Olhão Olhão (), officially known as Olhão da Restauração, is a city and concelho, municipality in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. The population of the municipality in 2011 was 45,396, in an area of . Located near the regional capital Faro, ...

Algarve The Algarve (, , ) is the southernmost NUTS statistical regions of Portugal, NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities (concelho, ''concelhos'' or ''município ...

around 1863 in a sheltered bay, and joined by the fishermen of

Póvoa de Varzim Póvoa de Varzim () is a Portugal, Portuguese city in Norte Region, Portugal, Northern Portugal and sub-region of Greater Porto, from its city centre. It sits in a sandy coastal plain, a cuspate foreland, halfway between the Minho River, Minho ...

in 1921, who left Brazil not wishing to lose Portuguese nationality by becoming Brazilian nationals. Due to the fishing industry, Porto Alexandre gained city status in 1961. As of 2019 fishing harvests are declining. This is believed to have resulted from

ocean warming Ocean heat content (OHC) or ocean heat uptake (OHU) is the energy absorbed and stored by oceans, and is thus an important indicator of Climate change, global warming. Ocean heat content is calculated by measuring ocean temperature at many differe ...

, harvesting by industrial-sized foreign ships, and oxygen depletion. The movement of Angolans to the area based on its reputation for plentiful fishing has also contributed to the shortage of fish near the shore. As a result, anglers, usually from South Africa, who used to travel there for the fine fishing, no longer come. The prime fishing area, characterized by upwelling nutrient-rich cold water, has moved south along the Namibian coast.

References

Populated places in Namibe Province Lighthouses in Angola {{Angola-geo-stub

Economy

See also

References