Mbeya

The oldest thing in these highlands fell from the sky. The Mbozi meteorite, in the hills west of the city, is an iron meteorite about three metres long and weighing an estimated sixteen tonnes — one of the largest meteorites in the world. Since 2016 it has stood in Songwe Region, created from the western half of Mbeya. Local people long knew it; it came to scientific attention in 1930. It left no crater, which suggests it landed at a shallow angle or was buried and later exposed.

The modern town began with gold. A rush on the Lupa goldfields from 1927 drew thousands of prospectors and labourers into the region, and extraction peaked in the 1930s. Mbeya grew as the mining outpost that served it, and was formally established as a township in 1935. When the gold ran down, the town survived on agriculture and trade.

What secured its future was the TAZARA railway, built in the 1970s with Chinese support to link Dar es Salaam to Zambia's copperbelt without passing through white-ruled southern Africa. Mbeya became a key stop on the line, and later on the main road corridor to Zambia and Malawi, which is why it grew into one of the largest cities in the south.

The region is home to many peoples — the Nyakyusa in the fertile Rungwe district, the Safwa around Mbeya, and others — and its culture is agricultural, Christian in large part through long-established missions, and shaped by the border trade.

The landscape is what draws visitors. Mount Rungwe, a dormant volcano, rises above the tea country, and the district around it is full of crater lakes, waterfalls and hot springs. Kitulo National Park, the plateau that flowers between December and April, is within reach to the east.

And to the south, the highlands drop steeply to Lake Nyasa — Lake Malawi, as it is known across the border. At Matema, a long sandy beach lies at the foot of the Livingstone Mountains, with clear fresh water and fishing canoes carved from single tree trunks. Few foreign visitors get this far south, and it is one of the most beautiful and least known corners of the country.