Mulanje

Mulanje rises abruptly from the plains, and its highest summit, Sapitwa, reaches 3,002 metres. Paths climb to the plateau in three to six hours. Up there the ground opens into grassland between 1,800 and 2,200 metres, and the Mulanje cedar grows, the national tree, which can reach 40 to 50 metres and is now critically endangered. Walkers sleep in huts kept by the Mountain Club of Malawi.

UNESCO inscribed the Mount Mulanje Cultural Landscape in 2025 for the mountain's place in the lives of the Mang'anja, Lhomwe and Yao. Rock shelters, pools, burial grounds and old paths mark it, and Sapitwa itself is held to be the home of ancestral spirits, to be climbed only with traditional guidance. Lower down, settlers laid out tea estates around the foot of the massif.

• Sapitwa The 3,002-metre summit, usually approached from the Chisepo hut, and a sacred place where custom asks for a guide.
• The plateau huts Chombe, Lychenya, Tuchila and others, simple shelters for walkers crossing the grassland at the top of the massif.
• The tea estates Rows of tea around the foot of the mountain, planted by European settlers, the first tea grown on any scale outside its countries of origin.