Tanzania Overview

Overview

The East African country of Tanzania is bounded by the Great African Rift Valley and Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi in the west, passing eastwards across high plateau, mountains and plains to a narrow coastal strip and islands bordering the Indian Ocean. The 'Swahili' coast has seen a succession of Palaeolithic hunter gatherers, explorers, slave traders, ivory hunters, Indian merchants and Omani and European armies over its long history. A glimpse of this can be seen at Stone Town on Zanzibar Island, with its narrow twisted streets, old stone houses, mosques and walled courtyards. The bustling sea port of Dar es Salaam is on the mainland coast just to the south. Its eclectic mix of Swahili, German, Asian and British architecture grew up around a huge natural harbour, where traditional dhows unchanged for centuries still ply their trade between large cruise ships and cargo boats of all sizes. A succession of idyllic white sandy beaches fringed by coconut groves stretch along the coast to the north and south with a variety of popular and secluded resorts.

The spectacular mountains, valleys and plains in the interior of the country is home to an extraordinary variety of wildlife with a large number of national parks and game reserves. Kilimanjaro National Park is dominated by the great ice-capped mountain towering to 5895m above the Tanzanian plains. First climbed by a European in 1889, it is now popular with trekkers who climb from the tropical to the artic on the way to the top past a variety of endemic plant and tree species. The spectacular Ngorongoro Crater lies a little way to the west. The collapsed volcano or caldera, 18km across and 600m deep, is one of the few places where the 'big five' (lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino and elephant) can be seen during one days safari. Olduvai Gorge, the site where the Leakeys first found signs of early man - Australopithecus afarensis (3.7 million years), Australopithecus or Zinjanthropus -boisei ('Nutcracker Man' - 1.8 million years) and Homo habilis ('Handy Man') is nearby.

The Serengeti National Park still further west, is home to perhaps the largest concentrations of large animals in the world. Vast numbers of buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, Thompson's gazelle, eland, topi, Grants gazelle, giraffe, elephants and lions, and enormous variety of birds migrate across these plains to the Masai Mara and back, following the annual rains. National Parks in the central and southern part of the country are more difficult to reach and so are less frequented. The Selous Game Reserve offers a variety of walking, riding and boating safaris with concentration of wildlife second only to the Serengeti. The remote Ruaha Park is best visited in the dry season, when water is scarce and animals cluster along the banks of the Great Ruaha , Mwagusi Sand and Jongomero Rivers. Further west, the Mahale Mountains Park rising 2462m above Lake Tanganyika, was created as a reserve for chimpanzees with baboons and many rare monkey species.