THE COUNTRY

Offi­cially the United Repub­lic of Tan­za­nia (Swahili: Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tan­za­nia), was formed out of the union of two sov­er­eign states namely Tan­ganyika and Zanz­ibar. Tan­ganyika became a sov­er­eign state on the 9th of Decem­ber, 1961 and became a Repub­lic the fol­low­ing year.  Zanz­ibar became inde­pen­dent on the 10^th of Decem­ber, 1963 and the People’s Repub­lic of Zanz­ibar was estab­lished after the rev­o­lu­tion of 12th Jan­u­ary, 1964. The two sov­er­eign republics formed the United Repub­lic of Tan­za­nia on 26th April, 1964. How­ever, the Gov­ern­ment of the United Repub­lic of Tan­za­nia is a uni­tary repub­lic con­sist­ing of the Union Gov­ern­ment and the Zanz­ibar Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Government.

Since 1996, the offi­cial cap­i­tal of Tan­za­nia has been Dodoma, where the country’s par­lia­ment and some gov­ern­ment offices are located. Between inde­pen­dence and 1996, the main coastal city of Dar es Salaam served as the country’s polit­i­cal cap­i­tal. Today, it remains Tanzania’s prin­ci­pal com­mer­cial city and de facto seat of most gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions. It is the major sea­port for the coun­try and its land­locked neighbours.

GEOGRAPHY

 The United Repub­lic of Tan­za­nia is located in East­ern Africa. To the north are Uganda and Kenya; to the west, Burundi, Rwanda, and Congo; and to the south, Mozam­bique, Zam­bia, and Malawi. The island of Zanz­ibar is sep­a­rated from the main­land by a 35km chan­nel. Tan­za­nia is the world’s 31st-largest coun­try. Com­pared to other African coun­tries, it is slightly smaller than Egypt and com­pa­ra­ble in size to Nige­ria. The coun­try is moun­tain­ous in the north­east, where Mount Kil­i­man­jaro, Africa’s high­est peak, is sit­u­ated. To the north and west are the Great Lakes of, respec­tively, Lake Vic­to­ria (Africa’s largest lake) and Lake Tan­ganyika (the continent’s deep­est lake, known for its unique species of fish); to the south­west lies Lake Nyasa. Cen­tral Tan­za­nia com­prises a large plateau, with plains and arable land. The east­ern shore is hot and humid, with the island of Zanz­ibar lying just offshore.

PEOPLE AND CULTURE

 A total of 128 lan­guages are spo­ken in Tan­za­nia, most of them from the Bantu fam­ily.  After inde­pen­dence, the gov­ern­ment rec­og­nized that this rep­re­sented a prob­lem for national unity, and as a result intro­duced the Swahili lan­guage into all pri­mary schools to spread its use. Swahili and Eng­lish are the offi­cial lan­guages; how­ever, the for­mer is the national lan­guage. Although the many tribal lan­guages are not actively sup­pressed, they do not enjoy the same lin­guis­tic rights as Swahili, and they face lan­guage extinc­tion, with one, Kw’adza, hav­ing no known speak­ers. Ara­bic is widely spo­ken in Zanz­ibar.  As of 2010, the esti­mated pop­u­la­tion is 43,188,000.The pop­u­la­tion con­sists of more than 120 eth­nic groups, of which the Sukuma, Nyamwezi, Chagga, Nyakyusa, Haya, Hehe, Bena, Gogo, and the Makonde have more than 1 mil­lion mem­bers. Other Bantu peo­ples include the Pare, Zigua, Sham­baa, and Ngoni.

 

CUISINE

Tan­zan­ian cui­sine is both unique and widely var­ied. Along the coastal regions (Dar es Salaam, Tanga, Bag­amoyo, Zanz­ibar, and Pemba), spicy foods are com­mon, and there is also much use of coconut milk. Regions in Tanzania’s main­land also have their own unique foods. Some typ­i­cal main­land Tan­zan­ian foods include rice (wali), ugali (maize por­ridge), cha­p­ati (a kind of bread), nyama choma (grilled meat), mshikaki (mar­i­nated beef), fish, pilau, biryani, and ndizi-nyama (plan­tains with meat). Com­monly used veg­eta­bles include bamia (okra), mchicha (a kind of spinach), njegere (green peas), maharage (beans), and kisamvu (cas­sava leaves). Since a large pro­por­tion of Khoja Indi­ans had migrated into Tan­za­nia, a con­sid­er­able pro­por­tion of Tan­zan­ian cui­sine has been influ­enced by Indian cuisine.