Tete, Mozambique

Tete is the capital city of Tete Province in Mozambique and the largest city on the Zambezi River, on which it is the site of two of the four bridges that cross the river in Mozambique. It was a Swahili trade centre before the Portuguese colonial era. Drawn by news of a ruler known as the Munhumutapa, who was said to have fabulous gold wealth, the Portuguese established two settlements far up the Zambezi in 1531, one of them at Tete some 420 kilometres from the sea. By the mid-17th century it was a market centre for ivory and gold, it received a Portuguese town charter in 1761 and it became a city in 1959. In the Nyungwe language Tete, or Mitete, means reed. The Samora Machel Bridge, finished in 1973, carries the main road linking the north and south of the country with Zimbabwe and Malawi, and the city has a hot semi-arid climate.