James Baquet Mozambique is located on the southeast African mainland, just across the Mozambique Channel (in the Indian Ocean) from Madagascar. Going clockwise from the sea, one encounters a short border with South Africa on the south, Swaziland on the west (near which the capital of Maputo is located) and then a much longer border with South Africa, much of which is occupied by the Parque Nacional de Limpopo (which borders on Kruger National Park on the South African side), then a long stretch of Zimbabwe, still on the west, Zambia on a bit of the west and much of the north, Malawi cutting deeply into the center of the northern border; and Tanzania running along the northern border to the coast. Maputo, by the way, was once named after the Portuguese navigator Lourenco Marques. Portuguese is still the national language, as Mozambique was a colony of that European power from 1498, when it became “Portuguese East Africa,” until independence in 1975. The country itself was named after a small island of the same name, which in turn had been named after an Arab trader of the 1550s, one Mussa Bin Bique, who settled there and declared himself ruler of the area. Settled by Bantu-speaking tribes in the first to fifth centuries, from the 11th century the area was occupied by Arab, Persian and Somali merchants, as a distinct Swahili culture came to dominate. The famed Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama opened Mozambique to European colonization. Mozambique has vast natural resources, and is transitioning from an agricultural to a more industrial economy, including chemical manufacturing and petroleum production. Tourism is on the rise as the AIDS epidemic has leveled off. The annual average growth in GDP has been among the world’s highest since 2001; nevertheless, it is still one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries. As mentioned, Portuguese is the only national language. However, it is a second language for most speakers, whose mother tongues are the native languages such as Makhuwa, Sena and Swahili, all used by the Bantu majority. Vocabulary: Which word above means: 1. evened out, stopped climbing 2. body of water between a continent and an island 3. rapid increase in a disease 4. changing, moving through phases 5. wide, large 6. describes people and culture of Iran 7. people who trade goods 8. person who guides a ship, sailor 9. first languages, spoken at home | 