Maputo

Mozambique's capital on the Indian Ocean, Maputo is a port city with a walkable downtown — the Baixa — dense with restaurants, music venues, and a café scene, set against an eclectic architectural backdrop that mixes Portuguese colonial Neoclassical and Manueline styles with art deco, Bauhaus, tropical modernism, and Brutalist buildings. Landmarks include Independence Square, Maputo Fortress, and the 19th-century railway station. Wide avenues lined with jacaranda and acacia trees earned the city its nickname, City of Acacias. The city was known as Lourenço Marques until 1976.

• Population1,254,837
• Nearest water from center 2.6 km1.6 mi
• Nearest mountain from center 36 km22 mi