50 Fun Facts About Tanzania

Tanzania's coastline lies on which ocean?

Tanzania's 1,424 km coastline faces the Indian Ocean, with Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia islands offshore. Gulf and Indian traders have sailed here on the monsoon winds since the first millennium.

Which mountain in Tanzania is the highest in Africa and the tallest free-standing mountain in the world?

Kilimanjaro's Uhuru Peak stands 5,895 metres above sea level, making it Africa's highest point and the tallest free-standing mountain on Earth.

What is Tanzania's official capital, moved from the coast by a 1974 decision?

Dodoma, in Tanzania's central highlands, became the seat of the National Assembly in 1996; its name comes from a Gogo word meaning 'it has sunk'.

Who led Tanganyika to independence and served as Tanzania's president until 1985?

Julius Nyerere, called Mwalimu ('teacher'), founded TANU in 1954, became prime minister at independence and president in 1962, retiring in 1985.

In which year did Tanganyika gain independence from Britain?

Tanganyika became independent from Britain on 9 December 1961; Zanzibar followed in December 1963, and the two united on 26 April 1964 after the Zanzibar Revolution.

The 1967 Arusha Declaration committed Tanzania to an African socialism known by what name?

Ujamaa, roughly 'familyhood', was the Arusha Declaration's African socialism: collective villages, nationalised banks and industries. The economy had sagged badly by the late 1970s.

Which European power ruled mainland Tanzania as a colony from 1885 until World War I?

Germany ruled the mainland as German East Africa until its defeat in World War I; Britain then administered it as Tanganyika under a League of Nations mandate from 1922.

Which 1905-07 uprising against colonial rule swept southern Tanzania?

The Maji Maji Rebellion spread across the south in 1905; fighters believed sacred water, maji, would turn bullets to water. Reprisals and famine killed at least 75,000 people.

The 1896 war between Britain and the island sultanate off Tanzania is remembered as what?

The Anglo-Zanzibar War is the shortest war in history, lasting roughly 38 to 45 minutes on 27 August 1896; British warships shelled the palace after Khalid bin Barghash seized the throne.

Which rock star was born Farrokh Bulsara in Stone Town, on the island off Tanzania's coast, in 1946?

Freddie Mercury, Queen's frontman, was born Farrokh Bulsara on 5 September 1946 in Stone Town; his Parsi family fled to England after the 1964 revolution.

Which Tanzanian-born novelist won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature?

Abdulrazak Gurnah, born in Zanzibar in 1948 and author of 'Paradise' and 'By the Sea', won the 2021 Nobel for his writing on colonialism and the fate of refugees.

Tanzania is home to the world's largest population of which animal?

Tanzania is home to more lions than any other country, an estimated 14,000 or more, concentrated in the Serengeti, Ruaha and Selous ecosystems.

Which animals star in the great annual migration across the Serengeti plain?

Over a million wildebeest and some 200,000 zebra circle the Serengeti ecosystem each year, following the rains; river crossings of the Grumeti and Mara are the dramatic highlights.

In which Tanzanian park did Jane Goodall begin her study of chimpanzees in 1960?

Jane Goodall arrived at Gombe Stream, in western Tanzania, in July 1960; her observation of chimpanzees making tools upended assumptions about what separated humans from other animals.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is named after what kind of geological feature?

The Ngorongoro Crater is a volcanic caldera, the world's largest intact and unflooded one, about 19 km across and 600 m deep; its floor teems with wildlife year-round.

Olduvai Gorge, famous for early hominid fossils, is a ravine in which vast geological feature?

Olduvai Gorge is a 48 km ravine cut into the Great Rift Valley's eastern branch on the Serengeti plains; Louis and Mary Leakey excavated hominid fossils there for decades.

Tanzanite, the blue-violet gemstone, is mined only in one tiny area of Manyara Region near what?

The Mererani Hills near Arusha hold the only known tanzanite deposit, roughly 7 km by 2 km; vanadium gives the blue-violet colour and Tiffany named the stone in 1968.

On Tanzania's flag, a gold-edged black band separates a green triangle from one of what colour?

Adopted in 1964, the flag pairs Tanganyika's green-black-green with the light blue of Zanzibar's flag, standing for the ocean; the gold edges represent mineral wealth.

Tanzania's national anthem 'Mungu Ibariki Afrika' is a local-language version of which pan-African hymn?

Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, written by Enoch Sontonga in Xhosa in 1897, became a pan-African liberation hymn; it also forms part of South Africa's anthem and supplies Zambia's tune.

Which country financed and built the TAZARA railway from Tanzania to Zambia in the 1970s?

China financed and built the 1,860 km TAZARA line between 1970 and 1975, giving landlocked Zambia a route to the sea that bypassed white-ruled Rhodesia and South Africa.

In 1978-79 Tanzania fought a war that ended with the overthrow of which neighbouring dictator?

Amin had invaded first. Tanzanian troops and Ugandan exiles took Kampala, but the war badly damaged Tanzania's economy.

Who became Tanzania's first female president in March 2021?

Samia Suluhu Hassan, born in Zanzibar in 1960, was sworn in on 19 March 2021 after her predecessor died in office, having been vice president since 2015.

Which party was formed in 1977 by merging TANU with Zanzibar's Afro-Shirazi Party?

Chama Cha Mapinduzi, the 'Party of the Revolution', was created on 5 February 1977, and it governed as the sole legal party until multi-party politics was legalised in 1992.

More than 1,500 years ago the Haya people of the Lake Victoria shore built furnaces that forged what?

The Haya smelted carbon steel in tall charcoal furnaces roughly 2,000 years ago, using preheated air blown through clay tuyeres; archaeologists reported temperatures above 1,800 °C.

Which medieval Swahili city-state on Tanzania's coast grew rich on the gold trade from Sofala?

Kilwa Kisiwani, an island city-state on the southern coast, minted its own coins, controlled the Sofala gold trade and dominated the Swahili coast until the Portuguese sacked it in 1505.

The sultan of which country moved his capital to the clove island off Tanzania in 1840?

Said bin Sultan, ruler of Oman, shifted his court from Muscat to Zanzibar in 1840, making the clove island the hub of the East African ivory and slave trade.

Following Songwe's creation in 2016, how many regions did Tanzania have, five of them island regions?

Tanzania had 31 regions from 2016: 26 on the mainland and five on Zanzibar and Pemba, which keep their own president, House of Representatives and Revolutionary Council.

Tanzania is the most populous African country located entirely where?

Tanzania lies entirely south of the equator, between about 1°S and 12°S; with roughly 67 million people in 2024 it had outgrown South Africa, the next-largest wholly southern-hemisphere country.

Which of Africa's Great Lakes on Tanzania's border is the continent's deepest?

Lake Tanganyika reaches 1,470 metres deep, Africa's deepest and the world's second-deepest lake after Baikal; it holds hundreds of endemic cichlid fish species.

Which Tanzanian soda lake is East Africa's only regular breeding site for lesser flamingos?

Lake Natron, a caustic soda lake below Ol Doinyo Lengai, is the only regular breeding ground of East Africa's lesser flamingos; its high alkalinity keeps predators away from the nests.

The Tingatinga school of Tanzanian painting is known for what?

Tingatinga works are bright enamel paintings of daily life and animals on square boards, a style Edward Saidi Tingatinga began in 1968; it spread through the cooperative his followers formed after his death in 1972.

Bongo flava, Tanzania's pop genre, grew out of a 1990s movement whose name meant what?

The genre's early name, muziki wa kizazi kipya, means 'music of the new generation'; it blended hip-hop and R&B with taarab and dansi from the early 1990s. Singeli, a frantic 200-300 bpm style, followed in the 2010s.

Taarab, one of Tanzania's official music genres, is best described as what?

It flourished on Zanzibar. Ngoma is the drum-dance tradition, dansi the urban jazz and kwaya the choir music.

Which two clubs from the largest city are the giants of Tanzanian football?

Simba and Young Africans (Yanga), both based in the Kariakoo district, have dominated the league since the 1960s; their Kariakoo derby is one of Africa's biggest club fixtures.

Tanzanian runner Filbert Bayi set world records in the 1970s over which two distances?

Filbert Bayi set the 1500 metres world record (3:32.16) at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch and the mile record (3:51.0) in Kingston in 1975.

Tourism accounted for roughly what share of Tanzania's GDP in 2016?

Travel and tourism made up about 17.5% of Tanzania's GDP in 2016 and employed roughly 11% of its workforce; most visitors head for Zanzibar or the northern safari circuit.

What is Tanzania's currency?

The Tanzanian shilling replaced the East African shilling in 1966 and is divided into 100 senti; the kwacha belongs to Zambia and Malawi.

Roughly how many ethnic groups make up Tanzania's population?

Tanzania counts about 125 ethnic groups, none dominant; the Sukuma are the largest at roughly a sixth of the population, and Swahili as a shared national language kept ethnic politics rare.

The name Tanganyika is usually explained as Swahili for what?

'Sail in the wilderness' comes from Swahili tanga (sail) and nyika (uninhabited plain); the name was first applied to the great lake, then to the British-ruled mainland territory.

In which year did Tanzania hold its first multi-party elections?

Tanzania's first multi-party elections came on 29 October 1995, three years after the 1992 constitutional amendment ended one-party rule; the ruling party kept a large majority and Benjamin Mkapa won the presidency.

During World War II, roughly how many Tanganyikans joined the Allied forces?

About 100,000 Tanganyikans served, mostly in the King's African Rifles, fighting in Somalia, Abyssinia, Madagascar and Burma as part of some 375,000 Africans in Allied ranks.

According to the CIA World Factbook, roughly what share of Tanzanians are Muslim?

Muslims make up about a third (34%) of Tanzanians and Christians 63% in the 2020 estimate; nearly all of Zanzibar is Muslim, while Catholics are the largest Christian group on the mainland.

Tanzania has a popular local film industry known by what nickname?

Bongo Movie is the industry's nickname; 'Bongo', from ubongo ('brain'), is slang for the big city and for Tanzania itself, where survival takes brains. Films are low-budget Swahili-language dramas.

Which country borders Tanzania to the north-east, sharing Lake Victoria and the Serengeti ecosystem?

Kenya lies along Tanzania's north-eastern border, from Lake Victoria to the coast; the Serengeti's grasslands continue into Kenya's Maasai Mara, and both countries were founding members of the East African Community.

The name 'Tanzania' was chosen in 1964 through what?

The Tanganyika Standard newspaper ran a public naming contest in 1964 for the united republic; the winning entry fused TAN from Tanganyika with ZAN from Zanzibar and the ending '-ia'.

What is Tanzania's largest city and principal port?

Dar es Salaam, 'haven of peace' in Arabic, was founded by Sultan Majid of Zanzibar in the 1860s and grew into Tanzania's largest city, with over five million people by the 2022 census.

Which president died in office in March 2021, elevating his vice president to the top job?

John Magufuli, nicknamed 'the Bulldozer', died on 17 March 2021 aged 61, five months after winning a landslide re-election; his death was officially attributed to heart disease.

Which river, Tanzania's largest, reaches the sea through a mangrove delta facing Mafia Island?

The Rufiji, about 600 km long, is Tanzania's largest river, draining roughly a fifth of the country; its delta opposite Mafia Island holds East Africa's largest mangrove forest.

Who is credited with coining the name 'Tanzania' in 1964?

Mohammed Iqbal Dar formed 'Tanzania' by joining the first syllables of Tanganyika and Zanzibar with the ending '-ia'; the union took the name on 29 October 1964, six months after forming.

Which two hunter-gatherer peoples of Tanzania are thought to be East Africa's indigenous populations?

The Hadza and Sandawe both speak click languages unrelated to their Bantu, Nilotic and Cushitic neighbours, a sign they predate the Bantu expansion that brought iron-working farmers; the Hadza forage around Lake Eyasi.