Mozambique is known as a scenic country, which is located in the southeastern Africa. It has a beautiful landscape with white sand beaches, waterfalls and national parks where you can find a lot of wild animals. Also, this country is neighboring five countries. Unfortunately, the inhabitants are very poor, and they mainly live through agriculture(Sheldon, Mozambique, 2020).

Demography

Currently this country counts approximately 31,177,877 million inhabitants spread over 801,500 km2, which is a lot more than around 60 years ago when they counted 7,185,000 inhabitants. The total fertility rate of this country in 2020 is 4.9 which means live births per woman. Worldometers describes the following: "A Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 2.1 represents the Replacement-Level Fertility: the average number of children per woman needed for each generation to exactly replace itself without needing international immigration". The life expectancy of Mozambique is 62.1 in general, 65 years for women and 59.1 for men. In 70 years, the general life expectancy almost doubled. 

Out of 1000 infants unfortunately 44.9 dies and deaths under the age of 5 is slightly higher, out of 1000 children under the age of 5 61.1 dies in 2020. The current percentage of the population that is living in cities 37.8%. It can be concluded that throughout the years, the inhabitants of Mozambique have pulled to rural places because in the 1950's only 6% of the total population was living in cities. As last the population density in Mozambique is approximately 39 people per km2 (Worldometer, 2020).

Language

In 1975, Mozambique gained independence, after they have been a colony of Portugal for years. Because of this long period the national language of the country became Portuguese. This language is mainly spoken in the capital of Mozambique, Maputo, and in other urban areas but only around two-fifths of the population speaks Portuguese. There are a lot of different of different dialects spoken in the country, but the amount varies from 40 - 60. English is only spoken in the capital and other touristic places. The biggest part of the population speaks languages from the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo language group. In this group there are six languages that are best spread through the country: Makua, Lomwe, Tsonga, Sena, Shona, and Chuabo. Mozambique also shares a lot of languages with their surrounding countries: Swahili with many East African countries, Yao with Malawi and Tanzania, Makonde with Tanzania, the Ngoni and Chewa dialects of Nyanja with Malawi and Tanzania, Shona with Zimbabwe, and Shangaan (a dialect of Tsonga) with South Africa and Swaziland. Zulu and Swati are shared with South Africans and Zimbabweans because of big movements in the beginning of the 19th century. The language that is mainly spoken in the north-eastern of Mozambique except from two areas, coastal strip and a large part of the Tanzanian border, is Makua and Lomwe. Most of the population speaks Yao in the region that extends westward from the confluence of the Rovuma and Lugenda rivers to the border with Malawi. Nyanja is commonly spoken by the rivers Shire and Zambezi to the border of Zambia. Around one-tenth of the population speaks Shona and the region where they speak the language is between the Save River and the Zambezi valley. And last, one-seventh of the population speaks Tsonga which is spoken by the south of the Save river (Sheldon, Language, 2020).

Culture

Mozambique has a special and rich culture. Mozambique's culture consists of different influences. You will find mainly African, Arabic, Indian and of course Portuguese influences in Mozambique. These influences are visible through the settlements with Arab and Portuguese buildings (De lokale cultuur, 2020).

In the countryside of Mozambique, you can often see the African influences by the way people build their houses. Because Mozambique has long been ruled by Portugal, the culture of the country has many interfaces with Portugal (Mozambique travel guide, 2019). You can find Portuguese music and movies in Mozambique. Mozambique also maintains Portuguese traditions and many Portuguese dishes are eaten in Mozambique as well.

In Mozambique you can find a lot of different ethnic groups, you will also find a lot of different languages spoken (Mozambique travel guide, 2019).

Beliefs/religion

The most widely held beliefs are the traditional African beliefs, which is half the population of the country. The greatest recognized religion adhered to is Roman Catholic. The second biggest religion in Mozambique is the Islam (Mozambique, 2018). Muslim Mozambicans are mainly located in the north of the country. Traditional beliefs can be found in the countryside. This is expressed by worshipping the gods of nature and so are ancestors. Spirits play a major role in religious traditions. Sacrifices and religious dances are often dedicated to the spirits.

This diversity in religions has caused a lot of tension between populations in the past. The country has therefore had to do much to achieve good harmony between the inhabitants of Mozambique (Mozambique algemeen, 2016).

Income/economy

The economy of Mozambique is mostly based on Agriculture, forestry and fishing. The agriculture of Mozambique employs is around 50 percent of the country's workforce. Most is done by family farming. On these farms they produce such things as Corn, cassava beans, rice, a variety of all kinds of vegetables and different kind of nuts. The family farming also provide cotton for the local markets. during the late 1970's there was a big market increase due to the greater social and political stability and the climate conditions.

In Mozambique there is a big forest along the Beira railway. In this forest they provide domestic fuel, firewood and charcoal. The wood that they provide is very useful as building materials and pulp for paper industry. The building materials from the forest are used for local use and export.

Fishing is not affected by the rural insecurity. It is one of the areas of the economy that is immune. The waters of Mozambique contain lots of different sea creatures such as, lobsters, tuna, mackerel, sardines and anchovies. But Mozambique is best known for their shrimps. Shrimps are very important for the export. In 2011 they discovered lots of gas fields in Mozambique. This will have a major impact on the economy of Mozambique. But sadly, despite the economic growth, more than half of Mozambique's citizens live below the poverty line. (Penvenne J. , 2016)

The currency in Mozambique is the Mozambique metical. 1 Metical is equivalent to 0,013 Euro. (Alamy, 2015)

Politics

Mozambique became independent from Portugal in 1975. This escalated in a civil war that went on for 16 years. The war eventually ended in 1992. During the civil war you had two different groups, the Frelimo party and the rebel movement Renamo. in October 2014 the Frelimo party won the presidential and parliamentary elections. The presidential elections were between Filipe Nyusi, Dhlakama and Simango. Filipe Nyusi won the presidential elections with 57 percent of the votes while Dhlakama only had 37 percent of the votes and Simango 6 percent of the votes. (Commonwealth, 2020)

Currently Filipe Nyusi is the president of Mozambique. He became president in January 2015 for five years until 2020. Filipe Nyusi is part of the Frelimo party. Filipe Nyusi wanted to represent a change; the Frelimo party has been dominating since the independence in 1975. During his election campaign, Nyusi wanted to transform Mozambique. In 2011 he got his change, they discovered gas fields in Mozambique. This could change the whole economy of Mozambique. (news, 2020)

History

Back in the day, the economy of Mozambique was characterized by private monopolies, central planning and state marketing of key products. Due to the colonial policy most Africans were excluded from highly skilled jobs and managerial position. A few years later Mozambique became independent. After their independence Mozambique tried to change their colonial economic patterns by promoting the training and education of African children and to stop the commercial distribution of Portuguese and Asian countries. After this the Portuguese and Asians left by the thousands. Frelimo tried to fix the agriculture, but it proved to be ineffective and unmanageable. this resulted in a collapse of the agricultural production, commerce and distribution system. In an effort to fix the collapse, they reoriented their economic policy with the plans of the International Monetary Fund. In 1951 Portugal declared Mozambique as their overseas province. Below you can see a timeline of the important moments that led to the independence of Mozambique. This timeline really shows Mozambique changed in the last 70 years. (Penvenne J. m., 2016)

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