Portal:Tanzania

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The Tanzania Portal

Flag of Tanzania Coat of Arms of Tanzania

Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to the south; Zambia to the southwest; and Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is in northeastern Tanzania. According to the 2022 national census, Tanzania has a population of nearly 62 million, making it the most populous country located entirely south of the equator.

Many important hominid fossils have been found in Tanzania, such as 6-million-year-old Pliocene hominid fossils. In the Stone and Bronze Age, prehistoric migrations into Tanzania included Southern Cushitic speakers who moved south from present-day Ethiopia; Eastern Cushitic people who moved into Tanzania from north of Lake Turkana about 2,000 and 4,000 years ago; and the Southern Nilotes, including the Datoog, who originated from the present-day South Sudan–Ethiopia border region between 2,900 and 2,400 years ago. These movements took place at about the same time as the settlement of the Mashariki Bantu from West Africa in the Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika areas. In the late 19th century, the mainland came under German rule as German East Africa, and this was followed by British rule after World War I when it was governed as Tanganyika, with the Zanzibar Archipelago remaining a separate colonial jurisdiction. Following their respective independence in 1961 and 1963, the two entities merged in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. Tanganyika joined the British Commonwealth and Tanzania remains a member of the Commonwealth as a unified republic.

Tanzania is mountainous and densely forested in the north-east, where Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa and the highest single free-standing mountain above sea level in the world, is located. Three of Africa's Great Lakes are partly within Tanzania. To the north and west lie Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, and Lake Tanganyika, the continent's deepest lake, known for its unique species of fish. To the south lies Lake Malawi. The eastern shore is hot and humid, with the Zanzibar Archipelago just offshore. The Menai Bay Conservation Area is Zanzibar's largest marine protected area. The Kalambo Falls, located on the Kalambo River at the Zambian border, is the second-highest uninterrupted waterfall in Africa. Tanzania is one of the most visited tourist destinations for safaris.

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The Great Lakes refugee crisis is the common name for the situation beginning with the exodus in April 1994 of over two million Rwandans to neighboring countries of the Great Lakes region of Africa in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Many of the refugees were Hutu fleeing the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which had gained control of the country at the end of the genocide. However, the humanitarian relief effort was vastly compromised by the presence among the refugees of many of the Interahamwe and government officials who carried out the genocide, who used the refugee camps as bases to launch attacks against the new government led by Paul Kagame. The camps in Zaire became particularly politicized and militarized. The knowledge that humanitarian aid was being diverted to further the aims of the genocidaires led many humanitarian organizations to withdraw their assistance. The conflict escalated until the start of the First Congo War in 1996, when RPF-supported rebels invaded Zaire and sought to repatriate the refugees. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Tanzania-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha (from Tanzania)
Image 2The snowcapped Uhuru Peak (from Tanzania)
Image 3Tanzanian Ngoma group (from Culture of Tanzania)
Image 4The Arusha Declaration Monument (from Tanzania)
Image 5St Joseph's Catholic cathedral, Zanzibar (from Tanzania)
Image 6Historical development of real GDP per capita in Tanzania, since 1950 (from Tanzania)
Image 7National Stadium in Dar es Salaam. (from Culture of Tanzania)
Image 8Olduvai Gorge site also known as "The Cradle of Mankind" (from History of Tanzania)
Image 9Location of Zanzibar within Tanzania (from History of Tanzania)
Image 10The Hadza live as hunter-gatherers. (from Tanzania)
Image 11Zanzibar harbour (from Tanzania)
Image 12Stamp of British East Africa with portrait of Queen Elizabeth II (from History of Tanzania)
Image 13A Ramadan dinner in Tanzania (from Culture of Tanzania)
Image 14Louis and Mary Leakey (from History of Tanzania)
Image 15Development of life expectancy (from Tanzania)
Image 16Tanzanian women harvesting tea leaves (from Tanzania)
Image 17Nkrumah Hall at the University of Dar es Salaam (from Tanzania)
Image 18A 1572 depiction of the city of Kilwa, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (from Tanzania)
Image 19Lemon and ginger tea. (from Culture of Tanzania)
Image 20A Tingatinga painting (from Tanzania)
Image 21One of the main trunk roads (from Tanzania)
Image 22Scientific publications per million inhabitants in SADC countries in 2014. Source: UNESCO Science Report (2015), data from Thomson Reuters' Web of Science, Science Citation Index Expanded. (from Tanzania)
Image 23A 1.8-million-year-old stone chopping tool discovered at Olduvai Gorge and on display at the British Museum (from Tanzania)
Image 24The semi-autonomous Zanzibar Archipelago (from Tanzania)
Image 25Tea fields in Tukuyu (from Tanzania)
Image 26Example of a World Food Programme parcel (from Tanzania)
Image 27Nyerere Bridge in Kigamboni, Dar es Salaam (from Tanzania)
Image 28High Court Building in Kigoma (from Tanzania)
Image 29Farmers using a rice harvester to harvest rice in Igunga District, Tanzania (from Tanzania)
Image 30Barbecued beef cubes and seafood in Forodhani Gardens, Zanzibar (from Culture of Tanzania)
Image 31Battle during the Maji Maji Rebellion against German colonial rule in 1905 (from Tanzania)
Image 32Tanzanian Ngoma group (from Tanzania)
Image 33Researchers (HC) in Southern Africa per million inhabitants, 2013 or closest year (from Tanzania)
Image 34A Tanzanian woman cooks Pilau rice dish wearing traditional Kanga. (from Tanzania)
Image 35Tanzanian Embassy in West End, Washington, D.C. (from Tanzania)
Image 36East African Legislative Assembly in Arusha (from Tanzania)
Image 37Traditional Tanzanian food consisting of pilau kuku (seasoned rice with chicken), mishkaki (grilled meat), ndizi (plantain), maharage (beans), mboga (vegetables), chapati (flatbread) and pili pili (hot sauce) (from Culture of Tanzania)
Image 38Domestic expenditure on research in Southern Africa as a percentage of GDP, 2012 or closest year. Source: UNESCO Science Report: towards 2030 (2015), figure 20.3. (from Tanzania)
Image 39Regions of Tanzania (from Tanzania)
Image 40Julius Nyerere demanding political independence for Tanganyika in 1961. (from History of Tanzania)
Image 41FIB Tanzanian special forces during training (from Tanzania)
Image 42A carved door with Arabic calligraphy in Zanzibar (from Tanzania)
Image 43A Tingatinga painting (from Culture of Tanzania)
Image 44Tanzania map of Köppen climate classification (from Tanzania)
Image 45The Masai giraffe is Tanzania's national animal. (from Tanzania)
Image 46Wildebeest migration in the Serengeti (from Tanzania)
Image 47National Stadium in Dar es Salaam (from Tanzania)

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This month in Tanzanian history

9 June 1954: The skull of Hehe chief Mkwawa, who died in 1898, was returned to Tanzania from Germany.
24 June 2002: Tanzania's worst train crash, the Igandu train disaster, killed more than 200 people.
26 June 1857: British explorers Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke travelled from Zanzibar to the East African coast and began their exploration of inland East Africa.
28 June 1919: Following World War I, the Treaty of Versailles broke up German East Africa with the United Kingdom acquiring the largest part which it named the Tanganyika Territory.

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Wildlife of Tanzania - show another

Credit: Luca Galuzzi

The leopard /ˈlɛpərd/, Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion and jaguar. Once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, the leopard's range of distribution has decreased radically because of hunting and loss of habitat.

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Did you know ...

... that Changuu Island, Zanzibar, houses a collection of endangered Aldabra Giant Tortoises (pictured)?

... that Operations Parthenon, Boris, Finery, Shed and Plan Giralda were all British plans for military intervention in Zanzibar following the 1964 revolution?

... that before Tanzanian soldiers could attack Lira in 1979, their commander gifted food and cooking oil to a ferry pilot so that he would ship them across a lake?

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WikiProjects

WikiProject Tanzania

WikiProject Africa

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Recognised content

Featured Articles: Anglo-Zanzibar War
Zanzibar Revolution

Featured Lists: List of Sultans of Zanzibar

Good Articles: 2008 invasion of Anjouan, Freddie Mercury, Lloyd Mathews

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Credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

Moshi is a Tanzanian town with a population of 144,739 (2002 census) in Kilimanjaro Region. The town is situated on the lower slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro, a volcanic mountain that is the highest mountain in Africa. Moshi is home to the Chagga and Maasai tribes and lies on the A 23 Arusha-Himo east-west road connecting Arusha and Mombasa, Kenya. Just to the east of Moshi is the intersection with the B 1 north-south road eventually connecting with Tanga and Dar es Salaam.

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Uganda–Tanzania War - show another

Articles here focus upon aspects of the Uganda–Tanzania War. These are all Good articles that meet a core set of high editorial standards.

The Battle of Jinja was a battle of the Uganda–Tanzania War that took place on 22 April 1979 near and in the city of Jinja, Uganda between Tanzanian and allied Uganda National Liberation Front forces on the one hand, and Ugandan troops loyal to Idi Amin on the other. The Tanzanians and the UNLF men met slight resistance and captured Owen Falls Dam and the town of Jinja.

Idi Amin had seized power in Uganda in 1971 and established a brutal dictatorship. Seven years later he attempted to invade neighbouring Tanzania to the south. The attack was repulsed, and the Tanzanians launched a counter-attack into Ugandan territory. After a number of battles, Amin's regime and military largely collapsed, and Kampala, the capital, was seized by the Tanzanians and the UNLF. Ugandan troops fled to the eastern city of Jinja, whose capture was entrusted to a force consisting of the Tanzanian 208th Brigade and members of the UNLF. (Full article...)

List of Uganda–Tanzania War articles
Battle of Entebbe Battle of Bombo Battle of Lira Battle of Karuma Falls Battle of Lukaya Battle of Bondo Battle of Masaka Air campaign of the Uganda–Tanzania War Battle of Mutukula Battle of Tororo

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Credit: Idobi

A Hadza man preparing arrow in Tanzania. The Hadza people live around Lake Eyasi and number less than 1000. 300–400 Hadza people still live as hunter-gatherers.

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