Tanzania

C

Natural Resources

Tanzania contains rich deposits of gold, diamonds, and other precious gemstones, as well as large amounts of coal and salt. Forestland constitutes one of the most substantial natural resources of the country. Among the many hardwoods found are mahogany and camphorwood.

D

Environmental Issues

A large country with diverse habitats, Tanzania has built a successful tourist industry around its plentiful wildlife. There are many environmental threats, however, spurred by the country’s rapidly growing population. The need for fuel and farmland has caused extensive deforestation, and the expansion of agricultural land into arid and semiarid regions threatens many areas with soil loss and desertification. Dynamite fishing has destroyed a large proportion of the country’s extensive offshore coral reefs. Programs to combat the tsetse fly are controversial because they use pesticides that harm wildlife. Finally, poaching, especially for elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn, remains a serious problem.

Forests, mostly open, relatively dry woodlands, cover 40 percent of Tanzania. Wetlands, including coastal mangrove swamps as well as inland systems such as lakeshores, floodplains, and swamps, make up about 6 percent of the land. Tanzania’s relatively well-organized protected land system has received substantial foreign logistical support and aid. The main elements are forest reserves, game reserves, and national parks, including Serengeti National Park. Tanzania has cooperative wildlife protection agreements with neighboring Kenya.

III

Population

The population of Tanzania consists mostly of members of more than 120 black African groups, the majority of which speak a Bantu language. The largest ethnic groups are the Sukuma and the Nyamwezi. Other groups of significant size include the Haya, Ngonde, Chagga, Gogo, Ha, Hehe, Nyakyusa, Nyika, Ngoni, Yao, and Masai. The population also includes people of Indian, Pakistani, and Goan origin, and small Arab and European communities. People living in rural areas make up 62 percent of the population. About 45 percent of Tanzanians are Christians; Roman Catholicism is the largest denomination. Islam is the religion of about one-third of the people on the mainland and is dominant on Zanzibar. Less than one-fifth of the population follows traditional religions. Swahili and English are the official languages of Tanzania, but many people continue to use the language of their ethnic group.

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A

Population Characteristics

The population of Tanzania (2007 estimate) is 38,139,640, giving the country an overall population density of 43 persons per sq km (111 per sq mi). Yet the population distribution is irregular, with high densities found near fertile soils around Kilimanjaro and the shores of Lake Malawi, and comparatively low density throughout much of the interior of the country. In the late 1960s and 1970s the Tanzanian government resettled most of the rural population in collective farming villages as part of its socialist agenda. The country’s population growth rate is 1.85 percent (2007).

The largest city, Dar es Salaam, has a population (1999 estimate) of 2,545,000. Other major cities are Mwanza (population, 1988; 233,013), a port on Lake Victoria, and Tanga (187,634), an industrial center and seaport. Zanzibar (157,634) is the largest city on the island. Dodoma (189,000) has been designated as the eventual capital of Tanzania.

B

Education

Primary education is free and compulsory in Tanzania, but not enough schools are available to accommodate all of the children, and only 84 percent of primary school-aged children are enrolled. It is estimated that 80 percent of people over the age of 15 are literate. Institutions of higher education in Tanzania include the University of Dar es Salaam (1961); the Open University of Tanzania (1992), also in Dar es Salaam; and Sokoine University of Agriculture (1984), in Morogoro.