Chongwe

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Geographical location of Chongwe

Chongwe is quite a sprawling city on the river Chongwe in the province of Lusaka in Zambia . It is 1068 meters above sea level and is the seat of the administration of the district of the same name with 146,000 inhabitants (2000), with around 29 inhabitants per km². It is located on the Great East Road 90 kilometers east of the capital Lusaka .

economy

The city of Chongwe has a daily market and numerous shops, Dunavant cotton and seeds, five agricultural suppliers, restaurants and bars. However, the district is more oriented towards the supply of the Soweto market in nearby Lusaka, especially with vegetables. Maize and cassava are only grown for personal use, and even that only partially, because the costs for seeds and artificial fertilizers are high. Beets, tomatoes, cabbage and peanuts are the main sources of income, with peanuts being the least expensive. The revenues are low because all smallholders offer their products at the same time. However, they pay high prices as they only buy when there is nothing to harvest. As they are not allowed to sell directly in the Soweto market, they have to sell to middlemen and are also asked to pay by so-called “cowboys” who otherwise keep the middlemen away. Animals, especially chickens and goats, are only sold in times of acute need. The people in the district are considered poor. Migration is common. Many families have close relatives in Lusaka or in the Eastern Province .

geography

Charcoal sellers on the street
Wood processing

The district is 80 percent wooded with miombo . Between 1989 and 1998, 30 percent of the forest was cleared, made into charcoal and sold in Lusaka. Even today, the capital gets 24 percent of its fuel from this district. The average rainfall is 880 mm. The soil is either clay and brown or crumbling rock, which makes it very acidic. The forest soils have a pH of 4.9–5.8 and a nitrogen content of 1.0–4.0 percent and 0.05–0.4 percent in the upper humus layer.

Infrastructure

The city of Chongwe is located on the paved Great East Road. The other roads in the district are unpaved. The city has an unpaved, 1,200-meter-long airstrip, elementary and secondary schools, hospitals, gas stations and electricity. There are hardly any such facilities in the wider district.

tourism

There are numerous lodges on the Chongwe River. It is the local recreation area of ​​Lusaka and rather lovely, a sharp contrast to the wildness of the Zambezi Valley into which it reaches. It flows into the Zambezi directly at Mana Pools and forms the border of the Lower Zambezi National Park . The dominant trunk are the solos.

See also

Web links

Coordinates: 15 ° 20 ′  S , 28 ° 41 ′  E