On the north, The Mbeya Mountains rise steeply to the northwest, and the lower Lupa upland further to the east.

[1] Most of the region is in the Southern Acacia-Commiphora bushlands and thickets ecoregion, with extensive grasslands punctuated by woodlands of Acacia and Commiphora trees.

[2] There are areas of dry miombo woodland along the southern end of the plain, on the lower slopes of the plateaus and the Makambako Gap.

Until the 1960s, the Sangu people were mostly pastoralists, grazing cattle on the plain with a communal form of land ownership.

In the 1960s the Tanzanian government organized an irrigation project and developed three large rice farms on the plain, watered by streams originating in the western mountains.