50 Fun Facts About Tanzania

Tanzania's coastline lies on which ocean?

The 1,424 km coast faces the Zanzibar Archipelago, Pemba and Mafia island. Traders from the Gulf and India have called here since the first millennium.

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

Its summit is 5,895 metres up.

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

Its name means 'it has sunk' in Gogo. It became the official capital in 1996, though Dar es Salaam remains the largest city and commercial hub.

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

Known as Mwalimu, 'teacher', he founded TANU in 1954 and pushed Swahili to unite more than 120 ethnic groups.

In which year did Tanganyika gain independence from Britain?

Independence Day is 9 December. Zanzibar followed in 1963, and the two merged on 26 April 1964 after the Zanzibar Revolution.

Nyerere's 1967 Arusha Declaration committed Tanzania to an African socialism known by what name?

Roughly 'familyhood', it stressed collective ownership and village life. Banks and big industries were nationalised, and the economy sagged by the late 1970s.

Which country ruled mainland Tanzania as 'German East Africa' from 1885 until World War I?

Britain took over as Tanganyika in 1920, handing Ruanda-Urundi to Belgium. German missionaries left a large Lutheran and Moravian legacy.

The 1905-07 uprising against German rule, in which some 300,000 people died, is known by what name?

Fighters believed 'maji', sacred water, would turn bullets to water. Repression and famine killed nearly a tenth of the population.

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

It lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, after a sultan Britain disliked took the throne. British ships shelled the palace and it was over.

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

His Parsi family fled to England after the 1964 revolution.

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

Author of 'Paradise' and 'By the Sea', he was honoured for his writing on colonialism and refugees. Shaaban Robert is called the father of Swahili literature.

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

About a fifth of Africa's large mammals live in its 21 national parks and reserves, which cover some 38% of the country.

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

White-bearded wildebeest by the million circle between the Serengeti and Kenya's Maasai Mara. The Serengeti was Tanzania's most visited park in 2013.

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

Her observation of chimps making tools upended assumptions about what separated humans from animals.

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

The crater floor teems with wildlife. Olduvai Gorge, cradle of key hominid fossils, lies within the same UNESCO area.

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

About 48 km long on the eastern Serengeti plains, it was worked for decades by Louis and Mary Leakey.

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

The deposit is just 7 km by 2 km. The colour comes from traces of vanadium, and Tiffany named the stone after the country in 1968.

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

Adopted in 1964, it merges Tanganyika's green-black-green with Zanzibar's blue for the ocean.

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

Enoch Sontonga wrote it in 1897; it also forms part of the anthems of South Africa and Zambia.

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

It gave 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?

She succeeded John Magufuli, who died in office. Born in Zanzibar, she was declared winner of the 2025 election with 98% amid unrest.

Which party has ruled Tanzania continuously since independence, making it a de facto one-party state?

The 'Party of the Revolution' formed from TANU and Zanzibar's Afro-Shirazi Party. Multi-party politics was allowed only in 1992.

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

Their blast furnaces exceeded 1,820 °C, hotter than anything in Europe at the time. The Pare people were the main iron producers of the north-east.

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

It controlled ports down to Mozambique and stayed East Africa's leading power until the Portuguese arrived around 1500.

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

Said bin Sultan's move made the clove-growing island the region's power centre. Tippu Tip was its most notorious slave trader.

How many regions is Tanzania divided into, including five on the islands?

Twenty-six are on the mainland. Zanzibar keeps its own president, House of Representatives and Revolutionary Council.

Tanzania is the most populous African country located entirely where?

Its 67.5 million people are spread unevenly, from 12 per square kilometre in Katavi to over 3,000 in Dar es Salaam.

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

Its floor lies 1,471 metres below sea level and it holds hundreds of unique cichlid fish. Lake Victoria is Africa's largest by area.

The Kalambo cascade on the Zambian border holds what distinction in Africa?

Only Tugela Falls in South Africa drops further in one leap.

The Tingatinga school of Tanzanian painting is known for what?

Edward Said Tingatinga founded it before his death in 1972; it is now East Africa's most popular tourist art.

Bongo flava, Tanzania's pop genre, grew out of a 2000s movement whose name meant what?

Muziki wa kizazi kipya blended hip-hop and R&B with taarab and dansi. Singeli, a frantic 200-300 bpm style, later emerged from Dar es Salaam 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?

Their derby, known as the Kariakoo derby, is one of Africa's biggest. Young Africans are usually called Yanga.

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

His front-running 1500m record at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch stood as the Games record until 2022.

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

Most visitors do Zanzibar or the 'northern circuit' of Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Tarangire, Manyara and Kilimanjaro.

What is Tanzania's currency?

Kenya and Uganda also use shillings, and the East African Community plans a common currency. The kwacha belongs to Zambia and Malawi.

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

The Sukuma, Nyamwezi, Chagga and Haya each number over a million. Nyerere's Swahili policy kept ethnic politics rare, unlike in neighbouring Kenya.

The name Tanganyika is usually explained as Swahili for what?

From 'tanga', sail, and 'nyika', uninhabited plain, and often taken as a reference to the great lake of the same name.

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

The constitution had been amended in 1992. CCM won 186 of 232 seats and Benjamin Mkapa the presidency.

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

They fought in the King's African Rifles in Somalia, Abyssinia, Madagascar and Burma.

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

Christians are about 63%. Nearly all of Zanzibar is Muslim, and Catholics are the largest Christian group on the mainland.

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

'Bongo' is slang for Dar es Salaam, from the Swahili for brains, needed to survive the city. Zanzibar hosts an international film festival.

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

Uganda is to the north-west, and Rwanda, Burundi and the DR Congo lie to the west across the Great Lakes.

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

The Standard's contest was won by Mohammed Iqbal Dar, who blended the two uniting states' names and, he said, the 'i' from his own.

What is Tanzania's largest city and principal port, its capital until the move to Dodoma?

It still holds most government offices and remains the country's commercial centre.

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

Nicknamed for his bulldozing style, he had been re-elected by a landslide just five months earlier.

Africa's lowest point lies in Tanzania. Where is it?

At 1,471 metres below sea level it sits in the same country as the continent's highest point, Kilimanjaro.

Who won the newspaper contest that produced the name 'Tanzania' in 1964?

The Standard ran the competition as Tanganyika and Zanzibar united; the new name clipped the two old ones together.

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

Both speak linguistically isolated languages, predating the Bantu expansion that brought iron-working farmers to the Great Lakes.