Tanzania General Information

Overview Tanzania's natural environment and geographical features have made it one of the best tourist destinations on the continent. It’s the largest of the East African countries. This is a country serious about protecting its natural inheritance and almost a quarter (23%) of its landscape has been allocated to 13 game reserves and national parks. These are home to a staggering range of African game. The Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area have been granted World Heritage Status. Along with the Masai Mara in neighbouring Kenya, this important eco-system contains over three million large mammals. Many of these move around the plains of East Africa on the continuous annual wildebeest migration: singularly the world’s biggest natural movement of animals. It's best appreciated from a hot air balloon over the Serengeti. The main Tanzanian tourist activity is the safari – meaning ‘journey’ in Swahili. Tanzania’s parks offer the best opportunity for some first-class game viewing in pursuit of the Big Five. The town of Arusha is the safari capital of East Africa. Thousands of minibuses depart from here all year round to the vast plains of the Serengeti; the birthplace of man at the Olduvai Gorge; the natural beauty of Lake Manyara; and the animal-stuffed Ngorongoro Crater, which has the highest density of well-fed lion in all of Africa. Whilst the crater gets a little overcrowded with pop-up minibuses, the Serengeti is so wild, open and majestic that travelling here is the true essence of safari. Tanzania’s other less known parks include Mikumi in the south, famous for its population of forest elephant. You will undoubtedly pass through it on any overland journey as it straddles the country’s main north-south highway. In contrast to the flat plains, Tanzania has a couple of very tall mountains: Mount Meru and Mount Kilimanjaro. Thousands of people every year fulfil their lifetime ambition of climbing to the top of Kili and the experience is the pinnacle of outdoor adventure. It’s the third tallest and the most visited mountain in the world. It is also the only one you can literally walk up - but slowly, to avoid contracting altitude sickness, known locally as ‘mountain disease’. Kili is famous for being Africa's highest point at 5 895 metres. A little known fact is that Tanzania is also the location of Africa’s lowest point – Lake Tanganyika is the world’s second deepest lake at 1 436m deep. With a long tropical coastal belt of natural white sandy beaches and palm trees embracing the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, Tanzania is also the destination for beach lovers and water sports enthusiasts. The off-shore islands of Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia offer the best opportunities for diving, snorkeling, fishing, sailing and even swimming with dolphins around the world-class coral reefs. Zanzibar Island, also known as the ‘Spice Island’ because of its long history of trading in commodities from spices to slaves, is Tanzania’s very sexy appendage. Exotic, intriguing and steeped in history and Swahili culture, it’s a place of noble Arabian architecture, romantic white-sailed dhows, and miles of sandy palm fringed beaches. A walk through the narrow, twisting passageways of the capital, Stone Town, full of beautiful Arabian architecture and a fragile Islamic way of life, plunges you into the past. Apart from unique geological features, the country also prides itself for its history that began in the Olduvai Gorge where the oldest evidence of man has been uncovered, considered by many to be the ‘cradle of mankind’. Today, Tanzania has a population of around 32 million of which 80% is rural. Driving through the rolling savannah you will see the subsistence farmers tending their smallholdings of maize and pineapples. You’ll also see some of Tanzania’s most exotic of the 120 ethnic groups, namely the colourful, proud and exceptionally tall Masai herdsmen. They roam the plains inside and outside the national parks that were traditional Masai grazing grounds long before conservationists earmarked the land for game reserves. By contrast, the Masai can also be spotted on the dusty streets of towns such as Arusha or Mto Wa Mbu, where the image of them riding on the back of pickup trucks or buying a coke brings their fiercely traditional way of life into the 21st century. Tanzania’s capital city is actually Dodoma. It's a highly inaccessible city thanks to horrendous roads in the middle of the country, though action to move the capital has stalled. The balmy port city of Dar es Salaam remains Tanzania’s overwhelmingly principle city. It’s the place to get things done and the springboard for a ferry trip to Zanzibar.

What is Tanzania's history? Tanzania used to be called Tanganyika. Its coast, along with Zanzibar, was the first region to attract international interest from the Persians, Arabs, Chinese and Indians who arrived in dhows in the 11th century. By the end of the 12th century the mainland settlement of Kilwa was ruled by Persians until the Portuguese destroyed it in the early 1500s. They claimed control over the entire coast before being ousted in turn by the Omani Arabs in the 17th century. European explorers and missionaries penetrated the interior of Tanganyika in the first half of the 19th century and two German missionaries had climbed to the top of Kilimanjaro by 1840. The eminent explorer David Livingstone established a mission at Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. It was here that he was found by Henry Stanley, an American journalist who had been commissioned by the New York Herald to locate him (and who uttered those immortal words “Doctor Livingstone I presume”). The European colonists arrived and Tanganyika was absorbed along with neighbouring Rwanda and Burundi into the colony of German East Africa. It was part of a deal between the British and Germans during the colonial carve-up of Africa. Although the Germans brought cash crops, railways and roads to Tanganyika, European rule provoked African resistance. This resulted in the Maji Maji rebellion of 1905-1907 that claimed some 120 000 African lives, killed by German troops or starved to death. Then World War I broke out and the British who had control over neighbouring Kenya, Uganda and Zanzibar attacked the German garrison at Tanga in 1914. The Germans won that battle, but lost the war, and Tanganyika was awarded to the British. Growing resistance to British rule swelled. In 1954 Julius Nyerere, a schoolteacher who was then one of only two Tanganyikans educated abroad at university level, organized a political party. Elections were held in 1960; Nyerere became president; and the British agreed to the establishment of internal self-government and independence. Tanganyika was proclaimed an independent nation in 1961 and Zanzibar in 1963. The two countries combined as one and formed the modern state of Tanzania – a combination of both names - with Dar es Salaam as the capital. Nyerere stayed in power until 1985. He adopted a strict socialist policy based on communist China, where rural development was reorganized and farmers were moved from villages into cooperative farms. The move was unpopular and failed dismally. It had dire consequences for the economy and made improvement to rural poverty. Despite China sending aid, the economy limped along without improvement thanks to Nyerere's refusal to change his failed socialist polices in what is one of Africa’s poorest countries. To worsen matters financially, Uganda’s despotic dictator Idi Amin decided to invade Tanzania in 1978. After several months of fighting, the unprepared and ill-equipped Tanzanian army did manage to defeat Uganda and pushed them back across the border. But the war cost Tanzania US$500 million and they had no international financial support at all. Nyerere retired as president in 1985 and was replaced by Ali Hassan Mwinyi who introduced market forces to kickstart the stagnant economy. The Rwandan genocide in the early 1990s had a major impact on the country. Thousands of refugees crossed into Tanzania and the subsequent war trials took place in Arusha. In 1995 Benjamin Mkapa became president. In 1998 Tanzania was the scene of one of the year’s major terrorist incidents when a large truck bomb exploded outside the US embassy in Dar es Salaam killing 10 people. Many hundreds were killed when a second bomb went off at the same time in Nairobi. Mkapa has won elections since then and remains the country’s president. Unfortunately, since the introduction of the multi-party political system after Nyerere’s retirement, elections in Tanzania and Zanzibar have been marred with violent protests - vote-rigging and disputed results usually provide the fuse. It’s not advised to travel here during election time.

What does Tanzania look like? A land of plains, lakes and mountains with a narrow coastal belt, Tanzania is East Africa's largest country. The bulk of its 945 087 sq km is highland plateau, some of it desert or semi-desert and the rest savannah and scattered bush. Mount Kilimanjaro in the north is the highest mountain in Africa at 5 895 metres. Tanzania borders three of the Rift Valley lakes: Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world; Tanganyika, second only to Lake Baykal as the deepest in the world; and Lake Malawi. 53 000 sq kms of land is covered by water. It has land borders with Uganda and Kenya to the north, Mozambique and Malawi to the south, Zambia to the southwest and the D.R.C, Burundi and Rwanda to the west. The Indian Ocean and the Zanzibar Archipelago are on its coastline to the east. The official capital of Tanzania is Dodoma in the centre of the country but most things get done in Dar es Salaam, still the country’s major city. Other substantial towns include the safari capital Arusha, Mwanza, Tanga and Zanzibar’s Stone Town.

What is Tanzania's weather like? Tanzania’s coast receives a warm tropical climate with high temperatures and humidity almost all year round and at least 7-8 hours of daily sunshine. The average daytime temperature is 25°C , but it can be as high as 39°C. High temperatures are cooled by ocean breezes, so it is rarely overpoweringly hot. The hottest season is from January to February and the coldest month is August. There are two rainfall seasons. The short rains are from September to November and the long rains are from March to June. Away from the coast, it is much drier and the rains are a little kinder. Tanzania is close to the equator so temperatures stay moderately warm throughout the year. On peaks above 1 500 metres, the climate is cooler, with permanent snow on the highest peaks such as Kilimanjaro, where night time temperatures drop below zero. Although the dry season is between June and September, it is not the best time to see game in the Serengeti as the migration moves to Kenya’s Masai Mara at this time of the year. What do the people speak? There are a number of local languages but most people in Tanzania, as in all East Africa, speak Swahili and some English. Here are a few words of Swahili so you can say hello or at least get a cold drink. A little Swahili goes a long way, and most Tanzanians will be thrilled to hear visitors attempt to use it. On the coast, Swahili is a little more grammatically developed. In other parts of the country, a more simplified version is spoken, known as ‘kitchen Swahili’. Since the language was originally written down by the British colonists things sound just like they look. • Hello - Jambo! • How are you? - Habari? • OK/fine - Sawa sawa • Yes - Ndiyo (try to skip the 'N') • No - Hapana • Good - Mzuri (To say 'very good' you add 'sana' to get 'mzuri sana') • Bad - Mbaya - (again, 'very bad' would be 'mbaya sana') • Please - Tafadali • Thank you (very much) - Asante (sana) • Goodbye - kwaheri • How much? - Pesa Ngapi? • No problem - Hakuna matata • Where is the bathroom? - Iko wapi choo? (where = wapi) • Water - Maji • Ice - Barafu • Hot - Moto • Cold - Baridi ('Nataka beera baridi sana' - ' I want a cold beer') • Tea - Chai • Coffee - Kahawa • Milk - Maziwa • Meat - Nyama ('Nyama choma' is cooked meat) • Beer - Bia or beera • I don’t speak Swahili but… - Sisemi Kiswahili, lakini