"Lilongwe" a Lilongwe Travel Page by frockland

A hundred years ago Lilongwe was a small village of no importance until it became the British administrative town for central Agoniland in 1905. At that time it had only 130 inhabitants! The village became more and more important with every new administration that was established there. In 1910 the road connection to Dedza in the south, Karonga in the north and Mchinji in Rhodesia was finished and made Lilongwe to an important junction. During the next years the village became third largest city in Nyasaland!

In 1966 about 20.000 people were living here. At that time plans were made to move the administrative centre from Blantyre to this more central location, with the objective to create a central balance between the more prosperous south and the less developed north. In 1968 the “Capital City Development Cooperation” was founded. Four years later the first ministries started their work in Lilongwe. In 1975 Lilongwe was formally declared as the new Malawian capital. The costs of this massive undertaking were paid by foreign aid and by South Africa that gave 45 million US $ eager to make “friends” in Central Africa.

Nowadays Lilongwe has got two faces: the modern “Capital Hill” (in allusion to “The Capitol” a governmental character shall be expressed) with its main quarter the “City Centre” and the “Old Town”, with its heart at Malangalanga Road where the bus station and the central market is. This part of Lilongwe is livelier than the sterile appearing newer part. City Centre and Old town are about 4 km apart.