Gurúè (also spelt Gurué; known before independence as Vila Junqueiro) is a town located in the northern part of Mozambique, near the center of the province of Zambezia.

The Portuguese authorities promoted a thriving economic climate and local tea companies become major players in the industry.

In the 1940s, over 300 Portuguese lived in the small town of Gurúè which gravitated around the tea aristocracy who provided all the amenities for the entire working population, including a private small airline to the largest cities on the coast, like Nampula, and the port city of Quelimane, the capital of Zambezia, in Portuguese East Africa.

[1][2] After the independence of Mozambique from Portugal in 1975, Vila Junqueiro returned to its original name, Gurúè, and started a process of deep deterioration and economic and social decline.

The exodus of the Portuguese, the eruption of the Mozambican Civil War (1977-1992) and the effects of FRELIMO's communist ideology, transformed the once thriving town in a few years.

According to a recent University of Cape Town scientific expedition "in a land of many natural treasures, Namuli (a mount near Gurúè, with 2419m and being the second highest mountain in Mozambique) is the jewel in the crown" and "a high-priority site for birds in Africa".

[4] SDZ Cha, one of the tea plantation companies, maintain amidst their estate a small patch of rainforest, preserving the pristine nature.