Lake Malawi (also known as Lake Nyasa, Lake Nyassa, Lake Niassa, and Lago Niassa in Mozambique), is an African Great Lake and the most southerly lake in the East African Rift valley system. The lake, third largest in Africa and eighth largest in the world, is situated between Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. It is also the second deepest lake in Africa but its placid nature at its northerly shore gives no hint of this feature. The lake's tropical waters teem with more fish species than any other lake on Earth.

 

Lake Malawi is between 560 and 579 km long and is 75 km wide at its widest point; its total surface area is approximately 29,600 km². The lake is bordered by western Mozambique, eastern Malawi, and southern Tanzania. Its largest tributary is the Ruhuhu and its outlet is the Shire River, a tributary of the Zambezi.

Lake Malawi lies in the rift valley formed by the East African Rift where the African tectonic plate is splitting in two. This is called a divergent plate boundary. The lake itself is approximately 40,000 years old.

It is approximately 350km south east of Lake Tanganyika.

 

 

David Livingstone was the first European to reach the lake, arriving at its shores in 1859 and naming it "Lake Nyasa." Much of the area surrounding the lake was subsequently claimed by the United Kingdom to form the colony of Nyasaland. Although Portugal took control of the eastern shores of the lake, the islands of Likoma and Chizumulu (which lie just off the shore) were colonised by Scottish missionaries from Nyasaland, and as a result were incorporated as part of Nyasaland rather than Mozambique. Today they form lacustrine exclaves: Malawian territory surrounded by Mozambique waters.

 

On August 16, 1914, the lake saw a brief naval engagement when the British gunboat Guendolen, commanded by Captain Rhoades, heard that World War I had begun and received orders to "sink, burn, or destroy" the German Empire's only gunboat on the lake, the Hermann von Wissmann, commanded by Captain Berndt. Rhoades's crew located the Hermann von Wissmann in a bay near Sphinxhaven, in German East Africa's territorial waters, and disabled it with a single shot from a range of 2,000 yards. The encounter was hailed by The Times as the British Empire's first naval victory of World War I. The shore of the lake that is now Tanzania was part of German East Africa at this point.

 

 

Large-scale transport between settlements along the shores of the lake and between the Malawi shore and Likoma and Chizumulu islands is provided by steamers. The MV Ilala is the best known, although in recent years has often been out of service. When running, it travels between Monkey Bay at the southern end of the lake to Karonga in the north, and occasionally to the Iringa Region of Tanzania.

Boats travel about twice a week from Nkhata Bay on the mainland to Likoma and Chizumulu islands, taking about five hours to cross the lake. Neither island has a usable port, and boats moor offshore before transferring passengers and produce to the shore in small dinghies.

 

Informal transport between the two islands and from Likoma Island to the Mozambique town of Cobue is provided by small dhows.

 

 

 

Lake Malawi has traditionally provided a major food source to the residents of Malawi as it is rich in fish, such as the chambo, consisting of any one of four species of the cichlid genus Nyasalapia and the kampango, a large catfish (Bagrus meridionalis). The fish are an important export for Malawi, but wild populations are increasingly threatened by overfishing and pollution. The Painted Hunting Dog is believed to be extirpated in Malawi, with the last relict population occurring in the Eastern Miombo woodlands just east of Lake Malawi. Other wildlife resident in the lake includes crocodiles, hippopotamuses, monkeys, and a large population of African Fish Eagles which feed off the fish population.

 

Sources:

 

1 "Malawi Cichlids". AC Tropical Fish. Aquaticcommunity.com. http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/cichlid/malawi.php. Retrieved 2007-04-02. 
2 "Nyasa, Lake". Columbia Encyclopedia Online. Columbia University Press. http://www.bartleby.com/65/ny/Nyasa-La.html. Retrieved 2007-04-10. 
3 "Lake Malawi". World Lakes Database. International Lake Environment Committee Foundation. http://www.ilec.or.jp/database/afr/afr-13.html. Retrieved 2007-04-02. 
4 "Protected Areas Programme". United Nations Environment Programme, World Conservation Monitoring Centre, UNESCO. October 1995. http://www.unep-wcmc.org/protected_areas/data/wh/lakemal.html. Retrieved 2008-06-26. 
5 Wilson, Ab; Teugels, Gg; Meyer, A (Apr 2008). "Marine incursion: the freshwater herring of Lake Tanganyika are the product of a marine invasion into west Africa" (Free full text). PloS one 3 (4): e1979. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001979. PMID 18431469. PMC: 2292254. http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001979. 
6 Edward Paice, Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa (2007), ISBN 0297847090
7 The Guendolen v Hermann Von Wissmann Clash of Steel
8 "Govt clarifies on Tanzania-Malawi border". KForum. 01 Aug 2007. http://www.kforumonline.com/viewtopic.php?t=712&sid=6ff7f94b3f06010d9542913ba89b2ac2. Retrieved 2009-01-26. 
9 C. Michael Hogan. 2009. Painted Hunting Dog: Lycaon pictus, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg