The 1895 map of the British Central Africa Protectorate (later to become Nyasaland and, today, Malawi) shows Blantyre as the country's major settlement. Zomba, as the cartographer's lettering shows, is undoubtedly subordinate. Neither Lilongwe nor Mzuzu is shown at all. More remarkably, at this point in history, Blantyre was recognisably an important town when Johannesburg, Lusaka, Nairobi and Harare were, at best, still unimportant villages.

It was in 1895 that Blantyre was officially declared a township while Lilongwe, Malawi's modern capital, remained a small trading village. In fact not until 1947 did Lilongwe achieve the status of a town. These contrasting provenances of Blantyre and Lilongwe are reflected in the two very different cities we see today. Even the most casual observer cannot fail to spot the distinguishing characteristics which mark each as unique, yet allow both to claim to be Malawi's premier city.

Blantyre, named after Dr David Livingstone's birthplace in Scotland, has its origins in the choice of its site by a party of Scots missionaries. Led by Henry Henderson, the missionaries arrived in 1876 to find just four small villages in the shelter of a shallow basin in the Shire Highlands. Their decision to settle here, just two miles from the present town centre, was partly influenced by the presence of streams flowing from the surrounding mountain peaks.

At first the Europeans used abandoned African huts as temporary homes, but once the mission was established they were joined by traders and, most importantly, the African Lakes Corporation set up its headquarters here. The extraordinary influence that the Corporation was to have in the country's early history is another story but its presence in Blantyre was critical in ensuring that the town would become, and remain, the commercial capital.

The Moir brothers, from Glasgow, arrived in 1878 and opened their first store in 1879. The Lakes Corporation was born. With encouragement from local people, who welcomed the protection the Europeans could give from raids by the Ngoni people from the north, trade flourished. Another Scot, James Stewart, began to lay out the streets - simple tracks which are still to be seen in the road pattern of central Blantyre today. Within twenty years of the coming of Henderson, there were permanent houses, stores and roads. Asian traders began to settle.

It was in 1907 that the seeds were sown for the development which we can now recognise as the conurbation of Blantyre-Limbe. At that time there was no town where Limbe now stands; indeed there was scarcely any settlement. Nevertheless, it was in 1907 that Limbe station was built on the new railway linking it with Nsanje (then Port Herald) at the most southerly point in the country. Two years later there had been so much development that it was declared a township. Remarkably, the railway link between Malawi and the Indian Ocean (Nsanje to Beira), the raison d'ètre of the whole project, wasn't achieved until 1922.

Limbe is the workplace and Blantyre the showplace of the modern settlement. Asian entrepreneurs abound in Limbe and it is the sort of place where commerce and industry are intertwined, never to be unravelled. It is in Limbe that the famous tobacco auction floor is located. On the other hand, most of the buildings of historical importance are in Blantyre: the old Town Hall, Mandala House, St Michael and All Angels Church. Unfortunately, in the rush to modernise the town in the 1960s and '70s, many of the old buildings were thoughtlessly destroyed, an action now regretted.

Blantyre-Limbe is the only town in Malawi where there is serious traffic congestion. The triangle of roads which form the heart of central Blantyre become hopelessly entangled with vehicles of every description - and others which defy description! Yet there are some open spaces, not least in the corridor which joins Limbe to Blantyre. It is here that the Museum of Malawi and the Chichiri National Stadium are sited.

In the true style of a conurbation, Limbe and Blantyre retain their own identities, their own centres, their own separate functions, yet form a single urban unit of over half a million population. They even have their own weather patterns. Only five miles separate the two centres yet when it rains in Limbe it will probably be dry in Blantyre and vice versa.

Strangely, this two-cities-in-one, a natural evolution in the case of Blantyre-Limbe, was a characteristic to be replicated in a different form, and by design, in Lilongwe from 1975.

Although there is evidence of settlement in the Lilongwe region from palaeolithic times, the modern city owes its development to its position at an important bridging point on the river Lilongwe and to the early growth of agriculture in the area. In the 20th century Lilongwe grew slowly as a market village, eventually becoming a regional centre. From 1903 it had been a colonial administrative centre but it was the establishment of central buying stations for the sale of locally grown tobacco that was the impetus for growth in the 1930s. All this while, Blantyre was the number one commercial centre and Zomba the administrative and de jure capital.

What is now known as Old Town Lilongwe continued to grow as an important market and communications node. The main north-south road through the country passed though the oversized village but it wasn't until 1947 that it was declared a town and it didn't achieve municipality status until 1966.

Lilongwe's position today as Malawi's capital, with a population of a third of a million, is largely down to one man: the first President of Malawi, Dr Hastings Banda. The Central Region, of which Lilongwe had been the most important settlement, was the birthplace of Dr Banda. No one was surprised when, in 1975, he declared the town to be the national capital of the Republic.

What has happened in the last quarter of a century is really quite remarkable. The Old Town - what was the original village - grew steadily but really changed very little in appearance until the last few years. The drama was taking place some three miles or so to the north-east. Here, from 1975, has risen a new town which has no real parallel in the rest of Africa. In truth, it had been planned from the mid-1960s when Malawi gained independence. Some building pre-dates its official naming as the capital in 1975, but most has been since achieving that status.

Lilongwe City, as distinct from Old Town, is best described as a scattering of very modern, sometimes grand, buildings apparently set down at random in an almost park-like setting. Broad avenues with large flower-bedded roundabouts add to the impression of spaciousness. The main roads are lined with flowering trees and bushes; jacaranda, acacia and poinsettia provide splashes of colour. Here are the buildings of government, of corporations, of the diplomatic representatives. There is a shopping centre and there are residential suburbs, but this is essentially a town of officialdom. Since last year even parliament has managed to tear itself away, finally, from Zomba and now meets here in Banda's old State House. At the core is Capital Hill, crowned by ministries and departments of state in an area of high security.

Of course, all this has been an expensive exercise. Most of the finance has come, not surprisingly, from outside Malawi, especially from South Africa. Whether the extravagances of the concept of a major modern city can be justified is for history to judge. Meanwhile, Old Town Lilongwe (most visitors' preference) has begun to fight back.

Ten years or so ago, most visitors to Old Town would have noticed little change, other than a general evolutionary growth, from its very village-like appearance of the 1960s, '70s and '80s. Now that is beginning to change. It is not so much the old has disappeared, rather it is that new buildings are starting to give this part of Lilongwe a modern make over. This is particularly so along the main highway which runs through Old Town. Fortunately many of the old attractions, like the craft market near the Post Office and the fascinating walled market, are still there but they are now competing with modern shopping blocks of the Tesco school of architecture so well known in Britain.

There is talk of a new hotel in Old Town, of new office complexes. One can only hope that Old Town will retain those characteristics that have made it distinctive. It doesn't need to compete with the City, at least not on the same terms.

Most visitors to Lilongwe will see clearly the difference between the old and the new. Even so, few will do more than tour the City and wander down the main thoroughfares of Old Town. Yet behind these two facades are large residential townships sprawling across countryside which not so long ago was mixed woodland in which elephant and other game roamed. Now all that remains of this environment is the town's Nature Sanctuary, a rather sad relic of what was.

The rivalry between Lilongwe and Blantyre remains. There is the rivalry of status - the one Malawi's capital city, the other the country's commercial hub. There is the tribal rivalry of region, the one in the south the other in the central region. Perhaps all they have in common is that both are two cities in one. But the fact is that Blantyre-Limbe and Lilongwe each perform very different and vital functions in this central African state still eager to find its rightful place in twenty-first century Africa.

John Douglas is a travel writer with some fourteen published books and two more due for publication in 2001. He is a director of London based Geo Group & Associates.

Published in Travel Africa Edition Thirteen: Autumn 2000 Text is subject to Worldwide Copyright (c)