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Why visit Tanzania? The reasons for visiting Tanzania are
innumerable, but the main list includes the following:
Over one quarter of its land mass is dedicated to National Parks, Game
Reserves and Game Controlled Areas, which gives Tanzania more land
dedicated to National Parks than any other country in the world and
ensures The finest game viewing potential anywhere.
From the largest Game Reserve in Africa (The Selous, 19,293 square
miles), declared a World Heritage Site in 1982, to one of the smallest
(Gombe Stream, with its chimpanzee population) and from one of the best
known (the Serengeti) to the least (Mahale Mountains).
~ The highest mountain in Africa,
Kilimanjaro, 19,340 feet (and the eighth highest, Meru (14,979 feet)
~ The Serengeti ecosystem (just the Park itself covers 5,700 square
miles, which gives some scale to the Selous!) and it’s attendant
migration.
~ The collapsed caldera, wildlife miracle
and World Heritage Site of the Ngorongoro Crater, often said to be the
Eighth Wonder of the World!
~ Olduvai Gorge - the “birthplace of Man”.
~ Tarangire National Park and Lake Manyara
Park along the Great Rift Valley
~ Lake Tanganyika, The second deepest lake in the world ( 4,725 feet)
~ Lake Victoria, The largest lake in Africa.
~ The Great Rufiji River.
~ Very varied habitats and vegetation zones.
~ A wonderful 497 mile coastline on the Indian Ocean, and three Main
tropical islands: Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia.
Zanzibar is a draw in itself.
~ Excellent climate.
~ Politically stable
~ Exceptionally friendly people.
English (and Kiswahili) as the main
languages.
Relatively low levels of tourism.
Location, Geography
Tanzania is bordered on
the south by Mozambique, Malawi, and Zambia; on the west by Zaire,
Burundi, and Rwanda; on the north by Uganda and Kenya; and on the east
by the Indian Ocean. Tanzania is the largest of the East African
nations, and it possesses geography as mythic as it is spectacular.
In the northeast of
Tanzania is a mountainous region that includes Mt. Meru (14,979 ft/4,566
m) and Mount Kilimanjaro (19,340 ft./5,895 m), the latter of which is
the highest point in Africa and possibly the most breathtaking mountain
imaginable. To the west of these peaks is Serengeti National Park, which
has the greatest concentration of migratory game animals in the world
(200,000 zebra, for example). Olduvai Gorge, the site of the famous
discoveries by the Leakey's of fossil fragments of the very earliest
ancestors of Homo sapiens. The marvellous Eden of Africa is Ngorongoro
Crater, a 20-mile-wide volcanic crater that is home to an extraordinary
concentration and diversity of wildlife. Moving west from the Serengeti,
one reaches the shores of Lake Victoria, the largest lake on the
continent and one of the primary headwater reservoirs of the Nile.
Southwest of Lake Victoria, and forming Tanzania's border with Zaire, is
Lake Tanganyika, the longest and (after Lake Baikal) deepest freshwater
lake in the world. It was at Ujiji, a village on the Tanzanian shore of
Lake Tanganyika, that H.M. Stanley presumably encountered David
Livingstone in 1871. Livingstone had fallen ill while searching for the
source of the Nile, and despite his illness he refused to leave.
Instead, he persuaded Stanley to accompany him on a journey to the north
end of Lake Tanganyika. The region that they passed through has
since become famous as Gombe National Park, the site of Jane Goodall's
chimpanzee research station.
Southeast of Lake
Tanganyika is a mountainous region that includes Lake Malawi (previously
Lake Nyala), the third largest lake on the continent. East of Lake
Malawi is the enormous expanse of the Selous Game Reserve, the largest
in Africa with over 21,000 sq. mi. (55,000 sq. km.) and perhaps more
than 50,000 elephants.
Moving northeast from Selous brings one to Tanzania's low, lush coastal
strip, the location of its largest city, Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam is
the embarkation point for Zanzibar, the fabled emerald isle that lies
off the Tanzanian coast.
History & People
The history of human
habitation in Tanzania goes back almost two million years, and the
fossils found at Olduvai Gorge by Louis and Mary Leakey now stand among
the most important artifacts of the origins of our species. Artifacts of
later Paleolithic cultures have also been found in Tanzania. There is
evidence that communities along the Tanzanian coast were engaging in
overseas trade by the beginning of the first millennium AD. By 900 AD
those communities had attracted immigrants from India as well as from
southwest Asia, and direct trade extended as far as China. When the
Portuguese arrived at the end of the 15th century, they found a major
trade center at Kilwa Kisiwani, which they promptly subjugated and then
sacked. The Portuguese were expelled from the region in 1698, after
Kilwa enlisted the help of Omani Arabs. The Omani dynasty of the Bu Said
replaced the region's Yarubi leaders in 1741, and they proceeded to
further develop trade. It was during this time that Zanzibar gained its
legendary status as a center for the ivory and slave trade, becoming in
1841 the capital city of the sultan of Oman.
In Tanzania's interior, at about the same time, the cattle-grazing
Maasai migrated south from Kenya into central Tanzania. Soon afterward
the great age of European exploration of the African continent began,
and with it came colonial domination. Tanzania fell under German control
in 1886, but was handed over to Britain after WWI. Present day Tanzania
is the result of a merger between the mainland (previously Tanganyika)
and Zanzibar in 1964, after both had gained independence. Tanzania has
like many African nations experienced considerable strife since
independence, and its economy is weak but improving. However, political
stability have been established.
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