Blantyre is a district in the Southern Region of Malawi. The capital is Blantyre, a commercial city where most Malawian industrial and business offices are. The district covers an area of 2,012 km² and has a population of 809,397. It was named after Blantyre, the birth village of Dr David Livingstone in Scotland, one of the first missionary explorers who came to Nyasaland, as Malawi was originally called before independence. It is also a main trading point besides the other large cities in Malawi.