MALAWI LAKE

Lake Malawi is between 560 kilometres 350 mi and 580 kilometres 360 mi long, and about 75 kilometres 47 mi wide at its widest point. The total surface area of the lake is about 29,600 square kilometres 11,400 sq mi. The lake has shorelines on western Mozambique, eastern Malawi, and southern Tanzania. The largest river flowing into it is the Ruhuhu River, and there is an outlet at its southern end, the Shire River, a tributary that flows into the very large Zambezi River in Mozambique.

The lake lies in a valley formed by the opening of the East African Rift, where the African tectonic plate is being split into two pieces. This is called a divergent plate tectonics boundary. It is variously estimated at about 40,000 years old or about one to two million years. The lake is about 350 kilometres 220 mi southeast of Lake Tanganyika, another of the great lakes of the East African Rift.

There is a rocky island about 3 kilometres from the western shore of the lake, across from Nkopola. named Boadzulu Island. The exact coordinates are 14°15'2.2"14.2506° south and 35°8'33.1" 35.1425° east. The island is uninhabited and is remarkable for the large number of cichlids which live in the surrounding waters.

European discovery and colonization

The Portuguese trader Candido José da Costa Cardoso was the first European to visit the lake in 1846.[8] David Livingstone reached the lake in 1859, and named it "Lake Nyasa".Much of the African region surrounding this lake was soon claimed by the British Empire and formed into the colony of Nyasaland. Although the Portuguese took control of the eastern shore of this lake, the island of Likoma was used as a mission station by the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, and as a result, Likoma and the nearby islet of Chizumulu were incorporated into Nyasaland rather than to Mozambique. Today, these islets form lacustrine exclaves: Malawian land surrounded by Mozambiquian waters.citation needed

On August 16, 1914, Lake Malawi was the scene of a brief naval battle when the British gunboat SS Gwendolen, commanded by a Captain Rhoades, heard that World War I had broken out, and he received orders from the British Empire's high command to "sink, burn, or destroy" the German Empire's only gunboat on the lake, the Hermann von Wissmann, commanded by a Captain Berndt. Rhoades's crew found the Hermann von Wissmann in a bay near "Sphinxhaven", in German East African territorial waters. Gwendolen disabled the German boat with a single cannon shot from a range of about 1,800 metres 2,000 yd. This very brief gunboat conflict was hailed by The Times in England as the British Empire's first naval victory of World War I. until that time, the lakeshore that is now in Tanzania had been a part of German East Africa.citation needed

Borders

The largest portion of the area of the lake is in Malawi. However, about a quarter of the area belongs to Mozambique. This area includes the waters surrounding the Malawian islets of Likoma and Chizumulu, which are this lake's only two inhabited islets. The islet of Likoma is dominated by a large stone and brick Anglican cathedral that was built by missionaries in the early 20th century. A notable feature of both islets is their significant number of baobab trees. The islets support a population of several thousand people, who in addition to being fishermen, grow plants such as cassavas, bananas, and mangoes for food.