Tanzania

Tanzania: capital Dodoma, population 70.5M, area 945,087 km². The 21st most populous country, in Africa. Facts, map, neighbours and more.

Tanzania runs from the Indian Ocean and the Zanzibar Archipelago west to Lake Tanganyika, with Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti in the north. Hominin footprints at Laetoli and the tool layers of Olduvai Gorge make the northern highlands one of the oldest records of human ancestry anywhere, while the coral towns of Kilwa and Zanzibar grew rich on Indian Ocean trade. Swahili, shaped along that coast and carrying Arabic loanwords in about two-fifths of its vocabulary, became the language that tied Tanganyika and Zanzibar together when they united in 1964.

• Olduvai Gorge cuts as deep as 90 metres into an old lake bed, exposing layers where Homo habilis lived about 1.9 million years ago and Homo erectus some 700,000 years later.
• Mary Leakey's team found a trail of hominin footprints at Laetoli in 1976, pressed into volcanic ash about 3.7 million years ago, showing that upright walking came long before large brains.
• Ibn Battuta reached Kilwa Kisiwani in 1331 and described the great dome its sultan had added to the Friday mosque; the island then traded the length of the Swahili coast.
• Tanganyika and Zanzibar united on 26 April 1964, and the new state took a name blended from both halves; Zanzibar kept its own president and a semi-autonomous government.

• Freddie Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar on 5 September 1946 to Parsi parents, returned to the island after boarding school in India, and left for England in 1964.
• Abdulrazak Gurnah left Zanzibar for Britain in the 1960s and won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature; his novel Paradise was shortlisted for the Booker in 1994.
• Filbert Bayi led the 1500 metres from the gun at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch and finished in 3:32.16, a world record that stood as the Games record until 2022.
• Siti binti Saad cut more than 250 records from the late 1920s, the first East African singer to record commercially, and sang taarab in Swahili where earlier stars had used Arabic.

• Kilimanjaro rises 5,895 metres above sea level and about 4,900 metres above its own plateau, making it the highest free-standing mountain on Earth; Hans Meyer first reached the summit in 1889.
• The Serengeti's yearly migration moves more than 1.5 million white-bearded wildebeest and 250,000 zebra across 14,763 square kilometres of park, timed to the rains and the grass they bring.
• The Great Mosque of Kilwa, begun in the tenth century, is among the earliest surviving mosques on the Swahili coast and one of the first built without an open courtyard.
• Lake Tanganyika is the world's longest freshwater lake and second deepest after Baikal; Tanzania holds 46 per cent of it, and its outflow eventually reaches the Atlantic through the Congo.

• About 40 per cent of Swahili vocabulary comes from Arabic, including the name itself, from a word meaning 'of the coasts'; the United Nations marks Swahili Language Day on 7 July.
• Edward Tingatinga started painting in 1968 on squares of masonite with leftover bicycle enamel; the style he founded outlived his death in 1972 and spread across East Africa.
• Makonde carvers work ritual masks, boxes and pipes from soft njala wood; the first documented exhibition of their sculpture opened in the 1930s and Western demand reshaped what they carved.
• Bongo Flava grew in Tanzania during the 1990s, crossing American hip hop with the older local styles taarab and dansi, and its lyrics are sung in Swahili or English.

What is the capital of Tanzania?

The capital of Tanzania is Dodoma.

What is the population of Tanzania?

Tanzania has about 70.5M people — the 21st most populous country in the world.

How big is Tanzania?

Tanzania covers 945,087 km², making it the 30th largest country by area.

Which region is Tanzania in?

Tanzania is in Eastern Africa, Africa.