Marracuene District is a district

District

Districts are a type of administrative division, in some countries managed by a local government. They vary greatly in size, spanning entire regions or counties, several municipalities, or subdivisions of municipalities.-Austria:...

 of Maputo Province

Maputo Province

Maputo is a province of Mozambique; the province excludes the city of Maputo . The province has an area of 26,058 km² and a population of 1,072,086 .Matola is the capital of the province....

 in southern Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

. The principal town is Marracuene

Marracuene

Marracuene, earlier known as Vila Luísa is a town in Mozambique's Maputo Province in Marracuene District, located 30 km north of Maputo on the Incomati River...

. The Incomati River

Komati River

The Komati River is a river in South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique. It is long, with a drainage basin in size. Its mean annual discharge is 111 m³/s at its mouth...

 flows through the district.

Marracuene, then known as Vila Luísa, served as a popular tourist destination in Mozambique's colonial era thanks to a 21-mile beach on the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

; the town also served as a key link in the Lourenço Marques

Maputo

Maputo, also known as Lourenço Marques, is the capital and largest city of Mozambique. It is known as the City of Acacias in reference to acacia trees commonly found along its avenues and the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. It was famous for the inscription "This is Portugal" on the walkway of its...

 Railway System.

On February 2, 1895, Marracuene was the site of a decisive battle between Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 commander António José Enes

António José Enes

António José Enes , commonly known as António Enes, was a Portuguese politician and writer.A significant member of the progressive political and literary 1870s movement in Portugal, Enes's life is notable for his significant achievements in several fields: by the time of his death he had worked...

 and Ronga

Ronga

Ronga is a South-Eastern Bantu language in the Tswa–Ronga family spoken just South of Maputo in Mozambique. It extends a little into South Africa...

 emperor Gungunyane; the Portuguese defeated the Ronga forces by means of repeating rifle

Repeating rifle

A repeating rifle is a single barreled rifle containing multiple rounds of ammunition. These rounds are loaded from a magazine by means of a manual or automatic mechanism, and the action that reloads the rifle also typically recocks the firing action...

s and a machine gun

Machine gun

A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....

.

Further reading

• District profile (PDF)