Blantyre
Blantyre is Malawi's centre of finance and commerce, and its second largest city, with a population of 800,264 as of 2018.
Blantyre is Malawi's centre of finance and commerce, and its second largest city, with a population of 800,264 as of 2018. It is sometimes referred to as the commercial and industrial capital of Malawi as opposed to the political capital, Lilongwe. It is the capital of the country's Southern Region as well as the Blantyre District.
Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Worth seeing in and around Blantyre
8 places within 25 km that the world writes about, in the order of how widely: the ones a visitor has heard of first, then the ones only a local would name.
- 01Kamuzu Stadium
The Kamuzu Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Blantyre, Malawi. It is currently used mostly for football matches.
3.4 km · building in Malawi · Wikipedia - 02Chichiri Museum
The Chichiri Museum, also known as the Museum of Malawi, is a historical and cultural museum located in Blantyre, Malawi. Strictly Museum of Malawi refers to a group of five museums but Chichiri Museum uses the name due to the breadth of its exhibits.
4 km · national museum · Wikipedia - 03Mandala House
Mandala House is a historic site located in Blantyre, Malawi. The building was formerly a residence built in 1882 by the African Lakes Corporation.
1 km · oldest house in Blantye · Wikipedia - 04Michiru Mountain
Michiru Mountain is located about 5 miles north of the city of Blantyre, Malawi, on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. The summit sits at an elevation of 3,925 feet, although because it rises from a high plateau its prominence is only a few hundred feet.
5.8 km · mountain in Malawi · Wikipedia - 05Our Lady of Wisdom Cathedral, Blantyre
The Our Lady of Wisdom Cathedral or Cathedral Limbe Our Lady of Wisdom, also simply Cathedral of Blantyre, is a religious building belonging to the Catholic Church and is located in Blantyre the second largest city in the African country of Malawi, in the Southern region. The temple follows the Roman or Latin rite and serves as headquarters of the Archdiocese of Blantyre which was created in 1959 by Pope John XXIII by bula Cum fides christiana.
7.3 km · building in Malawi · Wikipedia - 06St Michael and All Angels Church, Blantyre, Malawi
St. Michael and All Angels Church is a church that was constructed from 1888 to 1891 of brick at the Blantyre Mission in Blantyre, Malawi.
1.6 km · church in Malawi · Wikipedia - 07Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
The Kamuzu University of Health Sciences is a public university in Malawi. It was created in 2019 by separating and then merging the College of Medicine and the Kamuzu College of Nursing from the University of Malawi.
2 km · Malawian university of nursing and medicine · Wikipedia - 08Old Town Hall
Blantyre Old Town Hall is also known as Queen Victoria Memorial Hall and Old Boma. It is a national monument in the centre of Blantyre.
600 m · Blantyre's town hall also known as the Queen Victoria Memorial Hall or Old Boma, · Wikipedia
Ranked by the number of language editions of Wikipedia with an article on each, from Wikidata; the sentences are the openings of those articles, CC BY-SA 4.0.
What Wikivoyage says to see
- 01Mandala House
One of the oldest buildings in Blantyre and has spacious grounds with a children's playground.
- 02Museum of Malawi
From Wikivoyage: Blantyre, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Things to do
Record a Song, Synod Offices, CCAP Blantyre Mission, Chileka Road (Get yourself first to St Michael and All Angels Church. From the front door face down the hill and ahead and on your left you will see some offices. Go in and check that they are the Synod Offices and ask for the recording studios or the music director). Daily 8AM-4:30PM. Did Malawi put a song into your heart?
From Wikivoyage: Blantyre, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Where to eat
Vendors are all over the streets in Blantyre. They sell a range of food items from fried chips, chicken, to hard boiled eggs, bread (mostly milkscone variety and yellow buns), biscuits (locally made from Universal Industries), and so on. Plenty of ripe fruit and vegetables are also readily available for a good price.
From Wikivoyage: Blantyre, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Getting to Blantyre
- Airports
- Chileka (BLZ), 13 km · Tete (TET), 150 km · Kamuzu (LLW), 258 km
- Lumbadzi → Blantyre258 km · quickest by road, 5h 47m · $27–37
- Tete → Blantyre158 km · quickest by road, 4h 14m · $17–24
- Mfuwe → Blantyre456 km · quickest by air, 7h 58m · $260–380
- Plan a tripFrom anywhereThe planner compares every way there from wherever you are.
Road and air are today’s quick answer; timetabled trains, buses and ferries load on the results page from the operators’ feeds.
No local-transport research exists yet for Blantyre
Our researched notes are written from a sourced entry: every shared taxi, boat and village bus with its operator, its rule, its fare and the year we saw it, and what could not be confirmed. Nobody has done that work for Blantyre. What is above is what we hold from open sources; nothing here pretends to be more.
- Get aroundFor the budget traveller there are basically two ways of getting around Blantyre: by foot or by minibus.
- Get aroundIt is possible to explore the entire city of Blantyre on foot within a couple of days, and unless you are travelling to Limbe or to the outer suburbs of Blantyre, then it is unlikely you'll require even the minibus.
- Get aroundIn the event that you do, then minibuses are very cheap, travelling between Blantyre and Limbe costs MK 350 (as of January 2018).
From Wikivoyage: Blantyre, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us; that article was last edited 2026-09.
- 01197 km
- 02457 km
- 03620 km
- 041,162 km
- 051,288 km
If you know how people move in Blantyre – the stand, the rule, the fare – tell us, and the note gets an entry.
Next door to Blantyre
- Limbetown in the Blantyre District, Malawi700 m
- Mpingwetown in Southern Region, Malawi7.3 km
- Zingwangwaarea of the Malawian city of Blantyre3.4 km