The ecoregion extends along the coast of Tanzania and Mozambique, from Tanzania's Lukuledi River south almost the whole way to the mouth of the Limpopo River. It is mostly coastal, generally within 50 km of the Indian Ocean. It encompasses coastal lowlands, rolling hills, and isolated plateaus and inselbergs, including the Rondo and Makonde plateaus in southern Tanzania, the Mueda Plateau in northern Mozambique. It includes some isolated mountainous enclaves further inland, including Mount Chiperone, Mount Mabu, Mount Morrumbala, Mount Namuli, and Mount Tumbine in northern Mozambique, and the southeastern slopes of the Eastern Highlands, including Moribane forest. The mountains intercept humid southwesterly winds from the Indian Ocean, which form clouds and rain and create a cooler, wetter climate than the surrounding lowlands. These mountains are home to lowland evergreen forests with a similar flora to the coastal lowland forests, and higher-elevation montane forests, woodlands, grasslands, and heathlands which are home to many Afromontane species. The WWF scheme follows Frank White's 1983 "Vegetation Map of Africa" by including these inland mountains in the coastal forest mosaic ecoregion. Other researchers, including Jonathan Timberlake of Kew Gardens, maintain that the flora and fauna of Northern Mozambique's interior inselbergs, especially at higher elevations, have greater affinity with the Afromontane Eastern Arc forests. The ecoregion is bounded on the east by the Indian Ocean. To the north, it abuts the Northern Zanzibar-Inhambane coastal forest mosaic. It transitions to drier open woodlands to the west – the Eastern Miombo woodlands at the northern end, the Zambezian and Mopane woodlands in the central portion, and the Southern Miombo woodlands at the southern end. To the south, it borders the Maputaland coastal forest mosaic. It also includes some small offshore islands in Mozambique, including the Quirimbas Islands and Bazarruto Archipelago.
Climate
The climate is tropical in the northern portion, becoming sub-tropical at the southern end. In the area around Lindi in Tanzania there is one long dry season and one wet season. Rainfall is 800–1000 mm per year, and is higher on some of the plateaus and mountains. The climate is similar in the Mozambican portion, although rainfall is lower in northern Mozambique, which is in the rain shadow of Madagascar. Mean maximum temperatures are 30-27 °C in the north and 24 °C in the south, and mean minimum temperature is 18-15 °C throughout the ecoregion.
