Maputaland coastal forest mosaic

The Maputaland coastal forest mosaic is an ecoregion of the subtropical moist broadleaf forests Biome, on the Indian Ocean coast of Southern Africa. It covers an area of 30,200 square kilometres (11,700 sq mi) in southern Mozambique, Swaziland, and the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa. Mozambique's capital Maputo lies within the ecoregion.

The Maputaland coastal forest mosaic occupies the humid coastal strip along the Indian Ocean, inland to the Lebombo Mountains for much of its length. This is part of a strip of moist coastal forests that extend along Africa's Indian Ocean coast from southern Somalia to South Africa. The northern limit of the ecoregion is north of the mouth of the Limpopo River, near Xai-Xai in Mozambique, where the forests transition to the Southern Zanzibar-Inhambane coastal forest mosaic. The southern limit is near Cape St. Lucia in KwaZulu-Natal, where the Maputaland forests transition to the Kwazulu-Cape coastal forest mosaic.

The ecoregion has a seasonally moist, tropical to subtropical climate. Rainfall ranges from 1000 mm per year near the coast to less than 600 mm per year inland. Most of the rain falls in the summer months. The coastal strip includes areas of wetland, the largest of which is Lake St. Lucia, the largest estuarine system in Africa.

The ecoregion comprises a mosaic of many different plant communities, from the forest of the Lemombo Mountains through savanna, woodland, palm veld, grassland, sand dunes with patches of dense forest, and wetland habitats. The flora of the region includes a number of endemic species.

...
Wikipedia