Chinde
| Chinde | |
|---|---|
 Chinde
|
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| Coordinates: 18°35′S 36°28′E / 18.583°S 36.467°E | |
| Country |
 Mozambique
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| Provinces | Zambezia Province |
| District | Chinde District |
Chinde is a town of Mozambique, and a port for the Zambezi valley. It is located on the Chinde River, and is an important fishing center. It exports copra and sugar, and had a population of 16,500 in 1980. Chinde lies in Chinde District of Zambezia Province.
The small town of Chinde, located approximately 40 miles south of Quelimane, developed as the main point of entry for passengers and goods for the British Central Africa Protectorate which was proclaimed in 1891. Because of its favourable location on the Chinde River, part of the Zambezi River delta, it had potential for growth, and superseded both Quelimane and Conceição as the most suitable port of entry .
Until the third quarter of the 19th century, Quelimane, which was linked to the Zambezi river by a shallow channel, was the main port giving access to Central Africa. The Congress of Berlin in 1884 established free navigation of the Zambezi and its tributary rivers, and a number of British missionaries and traders who had started to visit and settle in what is now Malawi traveled there using the Zambezi and Shire River. When the channel from Quelimane became blocked, the search for an alternative route led to the discovery of the Chinde mouth of the Zambezi in 1889. As part of the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1891, the Portuguese government granted the British government the Chinde Concession for 99 years to establish a port where seagoing ships could transfer their cargoes to river steamers. The Inner Concession, which was exempt from Portuguese custom duties, had an area of 10 hectares, with a river frontage of 420 yards. This contained the government offices and the commercial warehouses, workshops and stores. A further 50 hectares without customs exemption, the Outer Concession, was designed to house the slowly growing population of Chinde. The site selected was a sandspit with the Indian Ocean to the south and the Chinde river to the north. A tidal creek virtually separated the Concession from the mainland, making it more of an island than a peninsula.
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Wikipedia