Mbala

Mbala is Zambia's most northerly large town and the seat of Mbala District in Northern Province, close to the border with Tanzania and controlling the southern approaches to Lake Tanganyika, whose port of Mpulungu lies 40 km by road to the north-west. It had a population of about 20,000 in 2006. Under the name Abercorn it was a key outpost of British colonial control in this part of south-central Africa, and the colonial era began there in 1893 when Hugh Marshall was sent as British Consul. Archaeological sites in the area, such as Kalambo Falls, record human activity over the past 300,000 years. The town stands at the edge of the central plateau at an elevation of 1670 m, about 900 m above the lake, on the old Great North Road 165 km north of Kasama, and it has an airport with a 2.6 km runway that was once a Zambian Air Force base.