Beira

Port at the mouth of the Pungwe and Busi rivers, Mozambique; population (1997) 412,600, (2007 calc) 561,200. It exports minerals, cotton, and food products, and is an important site for the domestic import of petroleum products. A railway through the Beira Corridor links the port with Zimbabwe, and there is an oil pipeline to Harare.

Beira was founded in 1891 by the Portuguese Companhia de Mocambique on the site of an old Arab town. Equidistant from Western European ports either by way of the Suez Canal or the Cape route, the port grew to be a very important entrepôt for central-southern Africa. It is the terminus of a railway from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Malawi, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and under Portuguese administration it played an important part in the avoidance of international trading sanctions by Zimbabwe (then known as Rhodesia). Zimbabwe stopped using Beira after Mozambique's independence, and the city ceased to be a holiday resort for the white population of South Africa. Beira handles most of the Democratic Republic of Congo's copper exports.