Malawi's northern highland city — Mzuzu coffee, Nyika Plateau, and the road to Nkhata Bay
Mzuzu is Malawi's third-largest city and the capital of the Northern Region — a highland city at 1,300 metres surrounded by rolling hills of tea and coffee smallholdings. It's the practical base for the northern Lake Malawi shore (Nkhata Bay is 50km east on a forested road) and the Nyika Plateau — Malawi's largest national park, a rolling 3,000-metre highland of open grassland and roan antelope. The city has a relaxed pace and is genuinely local, with few tourists stopping beyond overnighting en route to lake or plateau.
Mzuzu was established as the administrative centre of the Northern Region during the British Nyasaland colonial period and grew substantially after Malawi's independence in 1964. The northern Malawi highlands were shaped significantly by Scottish Presbyterian missions — the Livingstonia Mission (established 1894 on the escarpment above Lake Malawi) created a literate class of teachers and clerks whose descendants became disproportionately influential in Malawian national life. The Tumbuka people are the dominant ethnic group of the north, known historically as long-distance traders.