Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Population: 8,161,230 (2024 estimate)

Area: 614 square miles (1,590 square kilometers)

Founded: About 1862

Dar es Salaamis a large port city and major metropolitan area in Tanzania on the eastern coast of Africa. The city was formerly Tanzania’s capital and still serves as its seat of government. Dar es Salaam, a name meaning “Abode of Peace” in Arabic, is one of the largest cities on the African continent and one of the fast-growing urban centers in the world. Its population has nearly tripled since the start of the twenty-first century, and the city is projected to become a “megacity” with more than ten million people by 2030. Although Tanzania itself is one of Africa’s poorer nations, Dar es Salaam stands out as a bustling economic center and popular tourist destination.

Landscape

Dar es Salaam is located on the Indian Ocean in the eastern African nation of Tanzania. The city is almost centrally located on the continent’s eastern coastline, just south of the equator. Dar es Salaam is about 246 miles (397 kilometers) east of Tanzania’s official capital of Dodoma and about 47 miles (75 kilometers) south of the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar. Dar es Salaam itself is a highly populated urban landscape situated on a natural harbor. In contrast, much of the rest of Tanzania is made up of expanses of grasslands, plateaus, mountains, and lakes. The nation is home to Serengeti National Park, a famous wildlife reserve in northern Tanzania, and Mount Kilimanjaro, a 19,340-foot (5,895-meter) peak that is the tallest in Africa.

Dar es Salaam and the rest of Tanzania’s eastern coast have a hot and humid tropical climate, with high amounts of rainfall during the summer. The city has an average yearly temperature of 78.6 degrees Fahrenheit (25.9 degrees Celsius). As a tropical city, Dar es Salaam’s seasonal temperature variation is relatively small. Its warmest month is February, with averages reaching 82.2 Fahrenheit (27.9 Celsius); July is its coldest month, with an average temperature of 74.8 Fahrenheit (23.8 Celsius). The city receives about 42.9 inches (1,090 millimeters) of rain annually, with April being the wettest month at 9.9 inches (251.5 millimeters). August is the driest month with 0.9 inches (23 millimeters) of rain.

People

According to estimates from the CIA World Population Review, Dar es Salaam had a population of 8,161,230 in 2024. In 2012 the city’s population was listed at about 4.4 million, but a decade earlier, its population was only 2.5 million. The rate of growth puts Dar es Salaam on pace for a population of 13.4 million by 2035. Some estimates speculate that the city could reach a population of 70 million people by the start of the twenty-second century. It is one of the largest cities in Africa and among the continent's fastest-growing cities. Experts believe that Dar es Salaam’s population will pass the 10 million threshold sometime before 2030, catapulting it into “megacity” status.

According to the World Bank, the city’s adult literacy rate of 93.9 percent in 2020-2021 was higher than the rest of Tanzania (76 percent), mainly because individuals in Dar es Salaam could better access education. An estimated 62.1 percent of Dar es Salaam’s population was literate in Kiswahili, the local Bantu dialect and official language of Tanzania. Another 28.7 percent was literate in an amalgam of Kiswahili and English, which is the country’s official language of commerce. Nationwide, most of the population is African, with a small percentage being European, Asian, or Arab.

Tanzania had a young population, with more than 60 percent under the age of twenty-five in 2020, according to the World Factbook. The county had a high fertility rate, with 4.4 children per female, as of 2022. The maternal mortaility rate was high because of frequent and early pregnancies, inadequate healthcare services, a lack of skilled birth attendance.

Christians were a majority in Tanzania, making up 63 percent of the population. Muslims comprised 34 percent of the population but were more concentrated in the coastal regions. The island of Zanzibar was almost entirely Muslim, according to the Tanzania International Freedom Report in 2022.

Economy

Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world, with the CIA World Factbook reporting its 2031 per capita gross domestic product (GDP)—a measure of wealth that calculates a nation’s economic output per person—at $3,600, ranking 189th out of 229 countries. However, Tanzania reported some economic success in the late 2010s, with much of it due to economic activity in Dar es Salaam. While farming and agriculture accounted for about one-quarter of the nation’s GDP and employed about 65 percent of its workforce, only about 7 percent of Dar es Salaam’s population was involved in agriculture.

According to the World Factbook, Tanzania's unemployment rate was 2.61 percent in 2023. About 24 percent worked in agriculture, 28 percent in industry, and 29 percent in services.

Tanzania’s numerous national parks, wildlife preserves, and natural features, such as Mount Kilimanjaro, attracted more than 700,000 international tourists in 2022, pumping in $3.4 billion to the nation’s economy. (Note that the number of international tourists declined by nearly 75 percent following the COVID-19 pandemic but, as of 2023, was rebounding.) Dar es Salaam, which is known for its nightlife and picturesque beaches, is one of the primary arrival points for tourists coming to Tanzania and the main gateway to Zanzibar and its nearby islands.

Landmarks

Some of the main attractions in Dar es Salaam are the city’s beaches, which extend northward and southward from its urbanized center. North of the city is the Msasani Peninsula, which is home to Coco Beach, a prime swimming and surfing destination. To the south is the district of Kigamboni, another popular beach area that also features the Kigamboni Bridge, a 2,230-foot (680-meter) long cable-supported span with a unique architectural design.

Dar es Salaam is also home to the National Museum and House of Culture, which features exhibits on the region’s extensive culture. The exhibits range from fossil displays to artifacts from the slave trade and the nation’s days under colonial rule. The Village Museum contains interactive exhibits highlighting Tanzania’s rural culture. Among the displays are authentic Tanzanian huts and displays of traditional music and dance. The city’s botanical gardens were first opened in 1893 and are located on the ocean in the northern part of the city. The gardens feature numerous local plants and trees, including the rare coco de mer, or “sea coconut,” a tree native to the Seychelles, an island chain in the Indian Ocean.

Among the city’s other distinctive attractions are its numerous outdoor marketplaces. For example, at the bustling Kivukoni Fish Market, local fishers bring in and try to sell their catch. The market also features outdoor kitchens where cooks will prepare a seafood meal. The Mwenge Woodcarvers Market is another outdoor bazaar where locals sell homemade crafts, sculptures, and wood carvings.

History

Some of the earliest human ancestors lived on the grasslands of Tanzania millions of years ago. The oldest-known evidence of ancient humans was discovered in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge in the county’s northwestern corner. By the second millennium BCE, inhabitants of Tanzania’s coastal areas were trading with other peoples in Africa’s interior; within the next millennium, these cultures were conducting business with merchants from across the Persian Gulf and India.

The first European to reach the area was Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who arrived on Africa’s eastern coast in 1498. The Portuguese conquered Zanzibar and controlled the island for about two centuries. In 1698, Zanzibar fell under the control of the Sultan of Oman, who turned the island into a wealthy slave-trading center. In the mid-nineteenth century, Sultan Seyyid Said moved his capital from Oman to Zanzibar. After his death in 1856, Zanzibar was ruled by his son, Majid bin Said.

About 1862, Majid began building a new palace city near the fishing village of Mzizima on the mainland coast. Majid named his city Dar es Salaam, which means “Haven” or “Abode of Peace.” Majid died in 1870, and construction on the city lagged until the Germans colonized the region in the 1880s. The Germans named Dar es Salaam their colonial capital, and the city grew to become a thriving port city. Immigrants swelled the city population, and newly built railway lines made it a transportation hub for African trade.

During World War I (1914–1918), British forces targeted Dar es Salaam, invading and capturing the city in 1916. With the German defeat in the war, the colony fell under British control and was renamed Tanganyika in 1922. Zanzibar, which had been under British control since 1890, remained independent from Tanganyika.

Dar es Salaam became the political and economic capital of British-held Tanganyika and retained that position for the next four decades. In 1961, Tanganyika declared its independence, and three years later, it merged with Zanzibar to form the Republic of Tanzania—a name created by combining Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

Initially, Dar es Salaam remained the national capital, but the new country’s first president, Julius Nyerere, sought to change that. Nyerere was inspired by Chinese communism and viewed large urban centers as a symbol of Western oppression. He wanted to decentralize the nation’s population and spread it to other parts of the country. He broke Dar es Salaam into three districts and moved millions of people out of the city into country villages. In 1974, he announced that the nation’s capital would be moved to Dodoma, then a small village in central Tanzania. The official transfer was not completed until 1996, but Dar es Salaam continued to house much of the nation’s government entities and remained its de facto capital.

Nyerere’s plan to restructure the nation hit numerous roadblocks and was ultimately unsuccessful. The country’s economy began to falter in the 1980s, and people began streaming back into Dar es Salaam seeking work and housing. Hastily constructed settlements began to pop up throughout the city, often leading to problems with overcrowding and disease. Tanzania adopted democratic rule in the 1990s, bringing a measure of political stability to the country, although it still remained poor. Nyerere’s ties to communist China had one benefit, as Chinese investors funneled money into Dar es Salaam in the twenty-first century, greatly aiding its growth. To combat unchecked urban sprawl and an increase in poverty, city leaders have developed a number of development plans in the first decades of the twenty-first century. Some of the plans have been successful, leading to improved transportation systems and the revitalization of some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

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