Tukuyu, known as Neu Langenburg during the German colonial rule, is a hillside town that lies about 36 miles (58 km) south of the city of Mbeya, at an elevation of around 5,000 ft (1,500 m) in the highland Rungwe District of southern Tanzania, East Africa. Tukuyu town has a moderate to cool temperature ranging from 10 °C in May and June to mid 20 °C in around November. The town and surrounding areas are green all year round due to the almost year-round convectional rains resulting from Lake Nyasa(Lake Malawi).Tukuyu town is divided into several wards include; Kawetere, Msasani, Bulyaga and Bagamoyo.
The local language is Nyakyusa together with the national language Swahili. Secondary and college education is done in the English language. The people are the Nyakyusa, although localised groups give themselves different local names, such as the Waandali from the surrounding Ileje mountains. There are also intermarriages with the Kinga, Wabena and Kisii ...Read more
Tukuyu, known as Neu Langenburg during the German colonial rule, is a hillside town that lies about 36 miles (58 km) south of the city of Mbeya, at an elevation of around 5,000 ft (1,500 m) in the highland Rungwe District of southern Tanzania, East Africa. Tukuyu town has a moderate to cool temperature ranging from 10 °C in May and June to mid 20 °C in around November. The town and surrounding areas are green all year round due to the almost year-round convectional rains resulting from Lake Nyasa(Lake Malawi).Tukuyu town is divided into several wards include; Kawetere, Msasani, Bulyaga and Bagamoyo.
The local language is Nyakyusa together with the national language Swahili. Secondary and college education is done in the English language. The people are the Nyakyusa, although localised groups give themselves different local names, such as the Waandali from the surrounding Ileje mountains. There are also intermarriages with the Kinga, Wabena and Kisii tribes from the Livingstone mountain ranges.
The Nyakyusa tribe which dominates the whole of Rungwe and Kyela Districts, can also be found in the Northern Part of Malawi.
In 1891 Lutheran and Moravian Christian missionaries started to work in this region, aiming to convert the local population to their faith.[1]
"German administration at the north end of Lake Nyasa was established in January 1893, some eighteen months after the arrival of the first German missionaries. The new administration arrived in the form of a party led by Hermann von Wissman, Imperial Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief, with orders to take possession of the territory in the south of German East Africa secured under the terms of the Anglo-German Agreement of 1890."[2]
The town was founded in 1900 by the German Imperial regime as the colonial town of Neu Langenburg, named after the original Langenburg on the shores of Lake Nyassa which had to be given up due to rising sea levels. It was an important regional centre under the Germans and consequently there is an important Lutheran presence here, including a hospital. According to the 1920 Deutsches Koloniallexikon two of the ten shops were operated by Europeans and the police force, composed of "coloureds", was 66 men strong.[3]
The town was administered by the British from 1919 until 1961, as Tukuyu in the British Empire's Tanganyika Territory. After 1919, when the Germans left, Scottish missionaries carried on the work of their German Catholic counterparts at the Kiymbila and Itete Stations. The British established a large hospital in the town in the early 1920s, and built reliable roads and bridges. There was a small British military post some miles south at Masoko.
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