Makua people

Makua
A Makua mother and child in Mozambique.
Total population
8,486,103
Regions with significant populations
East Africa
 Mozambique8,486,103 (26.1%)[1][a]
Languages
Makhuwa, Portuguese
Religion
Traditional African religions, Islam (Sunni), Christianity (Roman Catholic)
Related ethnic groups
Sotho-Tswana, Eastern Shona peoples, and Venda people
  1. ^ Makua speakers

The Makua people, also known as Makhuwa or Wamakua, are a Bantu ethnic group found in northern Mozambique and the southern border provinces of Tanzania such as the Mtwara Region.[2][3] They are the largest ethnic group in Mozambique, and primarily concentrated in a large region to the north of the Zambezi River.[4]

They are studied by sociologists in four geographical and linguistic sub-divisions: the lower or Lolo Makua, the upper or Lomwe Makua, the Maua and the Niassa Makua or Medo.[4][5] They speak variants of the Makua language, also called Emakua, and this is a Bantu-group language.[6] The total Makua population is estimated to be about 3.5 million of which over 1 million speak the lower (southern) dialect and about 2 million the upper (northern, Lomwe) version; given the large region and population, several ethnic groups that share the region with the Makua people also speak the Emakua.[6][7]

  1. ^ "Mozambique", The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 2022-01-18, retrieved 2022-01-31
  2. ^ Anthony Appiah; Henry Louis Gates (2010). Encyclopedia of Africa: Kimbangu, Simon - Zulu, Volume 2. Oxford University Press. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-19-533770-9.
  3. ^ Godfrey Mwakikagile (2013). Africa at the End of the Twentieth Century: What Lies Ahead. New Africa Press. pp. 136–137. ISBN 978-9987-16-030-3.
  4. ^ a b M. D. D. Newitt (1995). A History of Mozambique. Indiana University Press. pp. 62–65. ISBN 0-253-34006-3.
  5. ^ Hilary C. Palmer; Malyn D.D. Newitt (2016). Northern Mozambique in the Nineteenth Century: The Travels and Explorations of H.E. O'Neill. BRILL Academic. pp. 154–158 with footnotes. ISBN 978-90-04-29368-7.
  6. ^ a b Andrew Dalby (1998). Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More Than 400 Languages. Columbia University Press. pp. 386–387. ISBN 978-0-231-11568-1.
  7. ^ Lomwe, MAKHUWA-MACA, MAKHUWA-MAKHUWANA, MAKHUWA-METTO, MAKHUWA-SHIRIMA, Ethnologue