Dodoma, Tanzania
Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania since 1996, is located on a plateau in the central highlands, approximately 480 kilometers inland from the Indian Ocean. Chosen for its central location and favorable climate, Dodoma serves as the country's political and administrative hub, while Dar es Salaam remains the primary economic and cultural center. The city has seen significant population growth, with over 262,000 residents as of 2018, many of whom are migrants from rural areas affected by environmental challenges. Ethnically diverse, the population predominantly consists of Bantu groups, with Kiswahili as the main language spoken alongside local dialects and English.
Despite its administrative importance, Dodoma faces economic challenges, especially in agriculture due to inconsistent rainfall. The city features a growing number of public-sector jobs and is supported by agricultural production, including crops like sorghum and millet. Key attractions include the UNESCO-listed Kondoa Rock-Art Sites, showcasing ancient art, and various religious structures that reflect its cultural diversity. Overall, Dodoma represents a blend of historical significance, ongoing development, and the challenges faced by a rapidly growing urban center in Tanzania.
Subject Terms
Dodoma, Tanzania
Dodoma has served as the capital of Tanzania since 1996, following a 1973 decision to move the capital from the city of Dar es Salaam. Dodoma is Tanzania's political and administrative center, while Dar es Salaam remains the country's economic and cultural hub. Until its assumption of the role of national capital, Dodoma was the sleepy provincial administrative center of a sparsely populated rural region of Tanzania. After voters decided in a nationwide referendum to transfer the capital to Dodoma, whose central location and more comfortable climate made it an attractive choice, the city expanded rapidly. Although the capital remains smaller and less developed than Dar es Salaam, it has made major strides. These include the much-anticipated establishment of the capital's first higher educational institution, the University of Dodoma, which opened in 2007.
Landscape
Dodoma is located on a plateau in the highlands of central Tanzania, roughly 480 kilometers (300 miles) inland from eastern Africa's Indian Ocean coastline. Dodoma belongs to a wider region of the same name, which is divided into several districts.
The city sits at an elevation of 1,135 meters (3,720 feet) above sea level, an altitude that creates a cooling effect on the local climate, which was a major factor behind the decision to transfer Tanzania's capital to Dodoma. Average monthly temperatures range from highs of 23.5 degrees Celsius (74.3 degrees Fahrenheit) in November to lows of 19.2 degrees Celsius (66.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in July, as compared to Dar es Salaam's February average of 27.6 degrees Celsius (81.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
Dodoma experiences a lengthy dry season from May through early December and a brief rainy season during the remaining months of the year. The dry season is also characterized by persistent wind patterns that create dusty conditions on Dodoma's streets and that tend to accelerate the erosion of soil in cultivated areas.
The lack of abundant, predictable rainfall has historically limited the yields produced by local farmers dependent on traditional agricultural methods. The unreliable food supply has stymied the area's economic development and kept many of its inhabitants impoverished.
People
With 262,000 inhabitants as of 2018, the city of Dodoma has experienced explosive population growth since the late twentieth century, with an annual gain of 8.6 percent between 2002 and 2012. Many of the new arrivals are refugees from agriculturally based economies devastated by soil erosion and deforestation. City officials attempted to stem the tide, which was placing an unsustainable strain on the capital's resources, by improving rural living conditions and relocating small-scale industrial jobs to outlying areas. However, the city's population continues to grow.
Dodoma's inhabitants reflect the ethnic composition of the mainland portion of the nation: 99 percent of residents are of African ancestry, and 95 percent of these belong to Tanzania's mainland Bantu groups. The remaining 1 percent of the population is composed of people of Asian, European, Arab, and ethnically mixed backgrounds. The largest Bantu groups represented in Dodoma's population are the Sandawe, Gogo, Rangi, and Burundi peoples.
Most of the capital's inhabitants are bilingual and speak Kiswahili, which is the official language and the language of instruction in primary schools, as well as one or more of the numerous local ethnic dialects. Many of Dodoma's residents are also fluent in English, which is the language most widely used in business and higher education settings.
Religion plays an important role in Dodoma. The main religions in Tanzania are indigenous spiritual traditions, Islam, and Christianity. Christian churches have played a significant role in the campaign launched by national officials in Dodoma to confront Tanzania's human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pandemic, which, by 2021, had left about 4.5 percent of Tanzania's adult population infected with HIV.
In 2007, as a result of an ambitious public health initiative, the Dodoma region recorded one of the country's lowest rates of new HIV infections. Hoping to replicate this success in hard-hit parts of Tanzania, more than one hundred high-ranking elected officials, including the Tanzanian president and his wife, publicly underwent HIV testing in Dodoma's Mwalimy Nyerere Square to kick off a five-year nationwide HIV/AIDS prevention and care program.
Economy
As the country's legislative and administrative capital, Dodoma features a large contingent of public-sector workers. As of 2016, nearly two-thirds of the region's employees worked for the public sector.
Dodoma is also situated in the heart of an agricultural region that, by 2017, was noted for its production of sorghum, millet, sesame, mangoes, groundnuts, sunflower seeds, and corn, as well as livestock such as goats, pigs, and donkeys. The city has historically provided central marketplaces for agricultural trade. Dodoma's railroad links the city to Tanzania's port city of Dar es Salaam. Highway connections to Kenya, Zambia, and Malawi have facilitated the trade of Dodoma's agricultural products to those locations.
According to a 2016 government report, the Dodoma region had 5,900 business establishments as of 2014–15, the majority of which were engaged in manufacturing, wholesale and retail sales, vehicle repair, education, tourism, and health and social services. City officials have made the diversification of the capital's economy a priority for future development plans. In an effort to spur business development, the government announced in 2018 that it would temporarily cut corporate tax rates for new companies and offer a brief tax amnesty to those who have evaded tax payments previously.
Landmarks
Dodoma's selection as Tanzania's capital was based principally on conveniences of location and climate; while Dodoma is a bustling center of bureaucratic and commercial activities, Tanzania's most distinguished landmarks of historic and cultural significance are located in Dar es Salaam. Dodoma's most striking feature may consist of the city's marketplaces, which offer a wide selection of traditional African fabrics as well as woven and carved handicrafts.
Among Greater Dodoma's most important attractions are the Kondoa Irangi rock paintings. The Kondoa Rock-Art Sites were named a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2006. Considered to be some of the finest examples of ancient art in the world, the rock paintings depict human and animal figures and shed light on the hunting rituals of the people who once inhabited the area.
Dodoma itself has few noteworthy buildings, although the city's Catholic and Lutheran cathedrals, Anglican church, and main mosque provide a range of religious architectural styles. Lion Rock, also known as Simba (Lion) Hill, offers a sweeping view of these structures and of the whole of the capital to hikers who reach the rock's peak.
History
Until the early twentieth century, the site of present-day Dodoma was occupied by a small settlement of some clans of the Gogo, a seminomadic people who relied on their cattle herds to sustain them. The Gogo's descendants remain one of the major ethnic groups in Dodoma today.
Dodoma's strategic location, roughly equidistant between several large cities, made Dodoma a convenient stopping point for traders transporting their goods by caravan over Tanzania's central plateau. Dodoma's development into a significant trading center in its own right did not escape the notice of German colonial authorities eager to expand their sphere of influence in Africa.
By 1907, which is considered the official year of Dodoma's founding, the Germans had already undertaken the construction of a central railroad designed to foster the city's economic growth—and potential German profits from that development. Germany's defeat in World War I (1914–18) forced German authorities to abandon their colonial ambitions. Dodoma came under British imperial authority at the end of World War I, a status it retained until Tanzania achieved independence in 1961.
Under four decades of British rule, Dodoma served as a provincial administrative center, whose modest economy continued to rely upon the central railway to ship the region's agricultural products to Dar es Salaam. Although the idea of relocating Tanzania's capital to Dodoma had been considered as early as 1915, a formal proposal was not put forth until 1959.
In 1974, the Tanzanian government began transferring the national governing infrastructure from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma. Although the country's legislative branch made the move immediately, a lack of necessary government offices caused the transition to come to a standstill. It took over forty years for the Tanzanian government to complete the move. The parliament's move to Dodoma was completed in 1996, but the final government offices did not take up residence in the new capital until 2023.
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