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Maputo, capital of Mozambique: facts and figures

Maputo is the capital of Mozambique. It has about 1,100,000 residents, which makes it the 112th most populous capital of the 172 in DailyGeo's atlas, and it sits 9 m above sea level. Its nearest neighbouring capital is Pretoria, 439 km away.

Key figures

FigureValue
CountryMozambique
ContinentAfrica
City population1,100,000 residents
World rank by population112th of 172
Elevation9 m
Founded1781
Time zoneAfrica/Maputo
Coordinates25.97° S, 32.57° E
Country population35,631,653 residents
Country GDP22.3 billion US dollars
GDP per capita$627
Life expectancy63.8 years
Internet users20.5 %
Big Mac pricenot reported

Climate through the year

Maputo averages 19.9 °C in winter and 25.9 °C in summer. July is the coldest month of the year and February the warmest, and the city receives 709 mm of precipitation in an average year.

Monthly means from ERA5 reanalysis, 2015 to 2024.
MonthMean temperature
January25.9 °C
February26.0 °C
March25.5 °C
April23.7 °C
May21.6 °C
June19.7 °C
July19.4 °C
August20.7 °C
September22.2 °C
October22.9 °C
November24.4 °C
December25.8 °C

What makes it stand out

  • Latitude: 2nd southernmost capital in Africa (25.97°).

Nearest capitals

Distances are great-circle distances between city centres, which is what the Capitals game measures when it tells you how far a guess was from the answer. Pretoria is the closest capital to Maputo.

CapitalCountryDistance
PretoriaSouth Africa439 km
MaseruLesotho624 km
GaboroneBotswana685 km
HarareZimbabwe919 km
LusakaZambia1,256 km

How to remember it

Reading a figure once rarely fixes it in memory. Attach Maputo to a place and a number you already know: it is 439 km from Pretoria, and it is the 112th largest capital in the atlas. Then practise retrieving it. DailyGeo Capitals gives you one mystery capital a day with distance, direction, language and population clues, the memorising method explains the review schedule, and the capitals index lists all 172.

To see how Mozambique compares with every other country on figures like these, the richest countries by GDP per capita ranks them on geopolitix, a country-ranking game by the same maker as DailyGeo.

Sources

  • City population and coordinates: DailyGeo's own game data, the same figures the Capitals game plays with. Population follows the urban area rather than the commune, which is why no density is quoted.
  • Temperature and rainfall: ten-year means (2015 to 2024) computed from ERA5 reanalysis, retrieved through Open-Meteo. Hersbach, H., et al. (2020). The ERA5 global reanalysis. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.
  • Elevation: terrain height at the city's coordinates in the Copernicus DEM, read through Open-Meteo rather than taken from a curated claim.
  • Time zone: resolved from the same coordinates.
  • Country figures: the World Bank, latest reported year for each series: Country GDP, GDP per capita, Country population, Life expectancy, Internet users.
  • Founding date: Wikidata, earliest recorded founding claim.
  • This capital elsewhere: Wikipedia, UNdata, Wikidata.
  • Method and limits: How this data was collected explains how each figure was collected and what it does not cover.

The short answer

Maputo is the capital of Mozambique, in Africa, with about 1,100,000 residents, averaging 19.9 °C in winter and 25.9 °C in summer.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the capital of Mozambique?

Maputo is the capital of Mozambique. It has about 1,100,000 residents and lies in Africa.

How many people live in Maputo?

About 1,100,000, which ranks Maputo 112th of the 172 capitals in DailyGeo's atlas by city population.

What is the weather like in Maputo?

Maputo averages 19.9 °C in winter and 25.9 °C in summer, with 709 mm of precipitation a year. These are ten-year means from ERA5 reanalysis.

How expensive is Maputo?

GDP per capita in the country is $627, the latest year the World Bank reports.

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