Mapai is served by a station of the southern railway line which runs between Maputo and the Zimbabwe border at Chicualacuala.

In colonial times, Mapai was a popular hunting destination with visits from well-known South African personalities including Jan Smuts, Ben Schoeman, Victor Verster and Judge Louis Weyers, as well as Paul Dutton.

[citation needed] Mapai was also the seat of the powerful Western Native Labour Association, which supplied South African mines with labour, and N’Gala Limited which was Orlando Pais Mamede's transport company, as well as, the Pecuaria de Mapulanguene trading mainly in Brahman and Hereford cattle, also belonged to Pais Mamede.

In June 1976, the Selous Scouts, a Rhodesian special operations unit, launched a raid on the ZANLA transit camp in Mapai and Chicualacuala.

[1] It was again the site of fierce fighting during Operation Uric in September 1979 during the final months of the Rhodesian Bush War.