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Tanzania

country in East Africa

Tanzania

Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest, Kenya to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the east, Mozambique and Malawi to the south, Zambia to the southwest, and Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. According to a 2024 estimate, Tanzania has a population of around 67.5 million, making it the most populous African country located entirely south of the equator.

Many important hominid fossils have been found in Tanzania. In the Stone and Bronze Age, prehistoric migrations into Tanzania included Southern Cushitic speakers similar to modern day Iraqw people, who moved south from present-day Ethiopia; Eastern Cushitic people who moved into Tanzania from north of Lake Turkana about 2,000 and 4,000 years ago; and the Southern Nilotes, including the Datoog, who originated from the present-day South Sudan–Ethiopia border region between 2,900 and 2,400 years ago. These movements took place at about the same time as the settlement of the Mashariki Bantu from West Africa in the Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika areas. In the late 19th century, the mainland came under German rule as German East Africa. This was followed by British rule after World War I when it was governed as Tanganyika, with the Zanzibar Archipelago remaining a separate colonial jurisdiction. Following their gaining respective independence in 1961 and 1963, the two entities merged in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania.

Tanganyika joined the British Commonwealth, and Tanzania remains a Commonwealth country as a unified republic. Today, the country is a presidential constitutional republic with the federal capital located in Government City (Dodoma); the former capital, Dar es Salaam, retains most government offices and is the country's largest city, principal port, and leading commercial centre. For decades, Tanzania has been ruled by the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) as a de facto one-party state.

Tanzania's population comprises about 120 ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. Christianity is the largest religion in Tanzania, with substantial Muslim and Animist minorities. Over 100 languages are spoken in Tanzania, making it the most linguistically diverse country in East Africa. The country does not have a de jure official language, although the national language is Swahili. English is used in foreign trade, in diplomacy, in higher courts, and as a medium of instruction in secondary and higher education. Arabic is widely spoken in Zanzibar, reflecting its history as a trading center dominated by Arabs.

Tanzania is mountainous and densely forested in the north-east, where Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa and the highest single free-standing mountain above sea level in the world, is located. Three of the African Great Lakes are partly within Tanzania. To the north and west lie Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, and Lake Tanganyika, the continent's deepest lake, known for its unique species of fish. To the south lies Lake Malawi. The eastern shore is hot and humid, with the Zanzibar Archipelago just offshore. The Menai Bay Conservation Area is Zanzibar's largest marine protected area. The Kalambo Falls, located on the Kalambo River at the Zambian border, is the second-highest uninterrupted waterfall in Africa. Tanzania is one of the most visited tourist destinations for safaris. The country is an official member of the United Nations, Group of 77, African Union, East African Community, and the Non-Aligned Movement.

Etymology

The name "Tanzania" was created as a clipped compound of the names of the two states that unified to create the country: Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964. When Zanzibar and Tanganyika were uniting, national newspaper The Standard ran a contest for a new name, which was won by Mohammed Iqbal Dar. Iqbal claimed that he formulated the name by taking "Tan" and "zan" from the uniting states, "i" from his own name, and adding "a" as a reference to Ahmadiyya.

The name Tanganyika derives from the Swahili words tanga "sail" and nyika "uninhabited plain, wilderness", creating the phrase "sail in the wilderness". It is sometimes understood as a reference to Lake Tanganyika.

The name "Zanzibar" derives from Zanj, the name of a local people, and Arabic barr "coast" or "shore." Zanj comes from Al-Zanjia, the Arabic name for the East African coast. This word is related to Azania, the Greek name (possibly from a Sabaic name) for the same coast, mentioned in Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a book written in the first-century CE. Azania is described as ruled by the Mapharitis - an ethnic group residing (at the time) in what is today southwest Yemen.

History

=== Historiography ===

The earliest indigenous writing in Tanzania dates to the medieval period. In 1106 or 1107 CE (year 500 AH), Shaykh Abū ʽImrān Mūsā al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad founded the Friday Mosque in Kizimkazi as recorded by a dedicatory inscription in the miḥrāb of the mosque. The mint in Kilwa struck coins which record information about local sultans in rhyming couplets, something which has no parallel in earlier Islamic coinage. The example below is from c. 1300 CE (c. 700 AH):

Al-Ḥasan ibn Ṭalūt

Yathiqu bi Rabbiʼl-Malakūt

Al-Ḥasan ibn Ṭalūt

Trusts in the Lord of the Kingdom [of Heaven]

The sequence of rulers arrived at by studying contemporary coins supplements and corroborates the oral traditions recorded in the Kilwa Chronicle as well as descriptions by outsiders. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Baṭṭūṭa reports that 14th-century CE (8th-century AH) sultan al-Ḥasan ibn Sulaimān was called Abuʼl-Mawāhib (Father of Gifts), and that he personally witnessed the sultan give away his own clothes to a poor man who requested them when the sultan was on his way home from the mosque. The same epithet is preserved on the sultan's gold coins and in the oral tradition.

Ancient

The indigenous populations of eastern Africa are thought to be the linguistically isolated Hadza and Sandawe hunter-gatherers of Tanzania.

The first wave of migration was by Southern Cushitic speakers who moved south from Ethiopia and Somalia into Tanzania. They are ancestral to the Iraqw, Gorowa, and Burunge. Based on linguistic evidence, there may also have been two movements into Tanzania of Eastern Cushitic people at about 4,000 and 2,000 years ago, originating from north of Lake Turkana.

Archaeological evidence supports the conclusion that Southern Nilotes, including the Datoog, moved south from the present-day South Sudan / Ethiopia border region into central northern Tanzania between 2,900 and 2,400 years ago.

These movements took place at approximately the same time as the settlement of the iron-making Mashariki (Eastern) Bantu from West Africa in the Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika areas, as part of the centuries-long Bantu expansion. The Bantu peoples brought with them the west African planting tradition and the primary staple of yams. They subsequently migrated out of these regions across the rest of Tanzania between 2,300 and 1,700 years ago.

Eastern Nilotic peoples, including the Maasai, represent a more recent migration from present-day South Sudan within the past 500 to 1,500 years.

The people of Tanzania have been associated with the production of iron and steel. The Pare people were the main producers of sought-after iron for peoples who occupied the mountain regions of north-eastern Tanzania. The Haya people on the western shores of Lake Victoria invented a type of high-heat blast furnace, which allowed them to forge carbon steel at temperatures exceeding 1,820 °C (3,310 °F) more than 1,500 years ago.

Travellers and merchants from the Persian Gulf and India have visited the east African coast since early in the first millennium AD. Islam was practiced by some on the Swahili Coast as early as the eighth or ninth century AD.

Medieval

Bantu-speakers built farming and trade villages along the Tanzanian coast from the outset of the first millennium. Archaeological finds at Fukuchani, on the north-west coast of Zanzibar, indicate a settled agricultural and fishing community from the 6th century CE at the latest. The considerable amount of daub found indicates timber buildings, and shell beads, bead grinders, and iron slag have been found at the site. There is evidence for limited engagement in long-distance trade: a small amount of imported pottery has been found, less than 1% of total pottery finds, mostly from the Gulf and dated to the 5th to 8th century. The similarity to contemporary sites such as Mkokotoni and Dar es Salaam indicate a unified group of communities that developed into the first centre of coastal maritime culture. The coastal towns appear to have been engaged in Indian Ocean and inland African trade at this early period. Trade rapidly increased in importance and quantity beginning in the mid-8th century and by the close of the 10th century Zanzibar was one of the central Swahili trading towns.

Growth in Egyptian and Persian shipping from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf revitalised Indian Ocean trade, particularly after the Fatimid Caliphate relocated to Fustat (Cairo). Swahili agriculturalists built increasingly dense settlements to tap into trade, these forming the earliest Swahili city-states. The Venda-Shona Kingdoms of Mapungubwe and Zimbabwe in South Africa and Zimbabwe, respectively, became a major producer of gold around this same period. Economic, social, and religious power was increasingly vested in Kilwa, Tanzania's major medieval city-state. Kilwa controlled a number of smaller ports stretching down to modern-day Mozambique. Sofala became the major gold emporium and Kilwa grew rich off the trade, lying at the southern end of the Indian Ocean Monsoons. Kilwa's major rivals lay to the north, in modern-day Kenya, namely Mombasa and Malindi. Kilwa remained the major power in East Africa until the arrival of the Portuguese at the end of the 15th century.

Colonial

Claiming the coastal strip, Omani Sultan Said bin Sultan moved his capital to Zanzibar City in 1840. During this time, Zanzibar became the centre for the east African slave trade. Between 65 and 90 per cent of the African population of Zanzibar was enslaved. One of the most infamous slave traders on the East African coast was Tippu Tip. The Nyamwezi slave traders operated under the leadership of Msiri and Mirambo. According to Timothy Insoll, "Figures record the exporting of 718,000 slaves from the Swahili coast during the 19th century, and the retention of 769,000 on the coast." In the 1890s, slavery was abolished.

In 1863, the Holy Ghost Mission established an early reception center and depot at Zanzibar. In 1877, responding to appeals of Henry Stanley following his trans-Africa expedition, and permission being given to Stanley by King Mutessa I of Buganda, the Church Missionary Society sent missionaries Edward Baxter and Henry Cole to establish inland missions. In 1885, Germany conquered the regions that are now Tanzania (minus Zanzibar) and incorporated them into German East Africa (GEA).

The Maji Maji Rebellion, between 1905 and 1907, was an uprising of several African tribes in German East Africa against the colonial authorities, in particular because of forced labour and deportation of certain tribes. It was the subject of a bloody repression, which combined with famine caused 300,000 deaths among the population, out of a Tanganyikan population of about four million.

The Supreme Council of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference awarded all of GEA to Britain on 7 May 1919, over the strenuous objections of Belgium. The British colonial secretary, Alfred Milner, and Belgium's minister plenipotentiary to the conference, Pierre Orts, then negotiated the Anglo-Belgian agreement of 30 May 1919 where Britain ceded the north-western GEA provinces of Ruanda and Urundi to Belgium. The conference's Commission on Mandates ratified this agreement on 16 July 1919. The Supreme Council accepted the agreement on 7 August 1919. On 12 July 1919, the Commission on Mandates agreed that the small Kionga Triangle south of the Rovuma River would be given to Portuguese Mozambique, with it eventually becoming part of independent Mozambique. The commission reasoned that Germany had virtually forced Portugal to cede the triangle in 1894. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919, although the treaty did not take effect until 10 January 1920. On that date, the GEA was transferred officially to Britain, Belgium, and Portugal. Also on that date, "Tanganyika" became the name of the British territory. In the mid-1920s, the British implemented a system of indirect rule in Tanzania.

During World War II, about 100,000 people from Tanganyika joined the Allied forces and were among the 375,000 Africans who fought with those forces. Tanganyikans fought in units of the King's African Rifles during the East African Campaign in Somalia and Abyssinia against the Italians, in Madagascar against the Vichy French during the Madagascar Campaign, and in Burma against the Japanese during the Burma Campaign. Tanganyika was an important source of food during this war, and its export income increased greatly compared to the pre-war years of the Great Depression. Wartime demand, however, caused increased commodity prices and massive inflation within the colony.

In 1954, Julius Nyerere transformed an organisation into the politically oriented Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). TANU's main objective was to achieve national sovereignty for Tanganyika. A campaign to register new members was launched, and within a year, TANU had become the leading political organisation in the country. Nyerere became Minister of British-administered Tanganyika in 1960 and continued as prime minister when Tanganyika became independent in 1961.

Modern

British rule came to an end on 9 December 1961. Elizabeth II, who had acceded to the British throne in 1952, continued to reign through the first year of Tanganyika's independence, but now distinctly as Queen of Tanganyika, represented by the governor general. Tanganyika also joined the British Commonwealth in 1961. On 9 December 1962, Tanganyika became a democratic republic under an executive president.

After the Zanzibar Revolution overthrew the Arab dynasty in neighbouring Zanzibar, accompanied with the slaughter of thousands of Arab Zanzibaris, which had become independent in 1963, the archipelago merged with mainland Tanganyika on 26 April 1964. The new country was then named the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. On 29 October of the same year, the country was renamed the United Republic of Tanzania ("Tan" comes from Tanganyika and "Zan" from Zanzibar). The union of the two hitherto separate regions was controversial among many Zanzibaris (even those sympathetic to the revolution) but was accepted by both the Nyerere government and the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar owing to shared political values and goals.

Following Tanganyika's independence and unification with Zanzibar leading to the state of Tanzania, President Nyerere emphasised a need to construct a national identity for the citizens of the new country. To achieve this, Nyerere provided what is regarded as one of the most successful cases of ethnic repression and identity transformation in Africa. With more than 130 languages spoken within its territory, Tanzania is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Africa. Despite this obstacle, ethnic divisions remained rare in Tanzania when compared to the rest of the continent, notably its immediate neighbour, Kenya. Furthermore, since its independence, Tanzania has displayed more political stability than most African countries, particularly due to Nyerere's ethnic repression methods.

In 1967, Nyerere's first presidency took a turn to the left after the Arusha Declaration, which codified a commitment to socialism as well as Pan-Africanism. After the declaration, banks and many large industries were nationalised.

Following Tanzania's establishment of independence, Nyerere's political philosophy enabled the nation to maintain an official, non-aligned position on foreign policy. Ujamaa, the socialist ideology of Nyerere, allowed the nation to develop a new national policy. This emphasized collective ownership, rural development, and the idea that economic growth should benefit the population as a whole rather than a small elite group. It was distinctly an African form of socialism, rooted in traditional village life rather than the industrial, state centered models seen in the Soviet Union. Tanzania was unique in this sense as several other African nations had adopted these foreign ideologies during the Cold War.

This neutrality enabled the nation to accept foreign aid from the United States, The Soviet Union, and China. Each of these nations supplied Tanzania with aid despite the Tanzanian people never declaring allegiance to any of these supernations. Tanzania's reception of aid largely went towards Nyerere's goal of national development projects.

From 1970 to 1975, China financed and helped build the 1,860-kilometre-long (1,160 mi) TAZARA Railway from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia. Nonetheless, from the late 1970s, Tanzania's economy took a turn for the worse, in the context of an international economic crisis affecting both developed and developing economies.

In 1978, the neighbouring Uganda, under the leadership of Idi Amin, invaded Tanzania. This disastrous invasion would culminate in Tanzania invading Uganda with the aid of Ugandan rebels and deposing Idi Amin as a result. However, the war severely damaged Tanzania's economy.

From the mid-1980s, the regime financed itself by borrowing from the International Monetary Fund and underwent some reforms. Since then, Tanzania's gross domestic product per capita has grown and poverty has been reduced, according to a report by the World Bank.

In 1992, the Constitution of Tanzania was amended to allow multiple political parties. In Tanzania's first multi-party elections, held in 1995, the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi won 186 of the 232 elected seats in the National Assembly, and Benjamin Mkapa was elected as president.

The presidents of Tanzania since independence have been Julius Nyerere (1962–1985), Ali Hassan Mwinyi (1985–1995), Benjamin Mkapa (1995–2005), Jakaya Kikwete (2005–2015), John Magufuli (2015–2021), and Samia Hassan Suluhu since 2021. After the long tenure of President Nyerere, the Constitution has a term limit: a president can serve a maximum of two terms. Each term is five years. Every president has represented the ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). President Magufuli won a landslide victory and re-election in October 2020. According to the opposition, the election was full of fraud and irregularities.

On 17 March 2021, President John Magufuli died in office. Magufuli's vice president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, became Tanzania's first female president. A series of demonstrations and civil unrest began in October 2025, coinciding with Tanzania's general elections. President Suluhu was declared the winner with 98% of the vote.

Geography

At 947,403 square kilometres (365,794 sq mi), Tanzania is the 13th largest country in Africa and the 31st largest in the world, ranked between the larger Egypt and smaller Nigeria. It borders Kenya and Uganda to the north; Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west; and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. Tanzania is located on the eastern coast of Africa and has an Indian Ocean coastline approximately 1,424 kilometres (885 mi) long. It also incorporates several offshore islands, including Unguja (Zanzibar), Pemba, and Mafia. The country is the site of Africa's highest and lowest points: Mount Kilimanjaro, at 5,895 metres (19,341 ft) above sea level, and the floor of Lake Tanganyika, at 1,471 metres (4,826 ft) below sea level, respectively.

Tanzania is mountainous and densely forested in the northeast, where Mount Kilimanjaro is located. Three of Africa's Great Lakes are partly within Tanzania. To the north and west lie Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, and Lake Tanganyika, the continent's deepest lake, known for its unique species of fish. To the southwest lies Lake Nyasa. Central Tanzania is a large plateau, with plains and arable land. The eastern shore is hot and humid, with the Zanzibar Archipelago just offshore.

Kalambo Falls in the southwestern region of Rukwa is the second highest uninterrupted waterfall in Africa, and is located near the southeastern shore of Lake Tanganyika on the border with Zambia. The Menai Bay Conservation Area is Zanzibar's largest marine protected area.

Climate

Climate varies greatly within Tanzania. In the highlands, temperatures range between 10 and 20 degrees Celsius (50 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit) during cold and hot seasons, respectively; the rest of the country has temperatures rarely falling lower than 20 °C (68 °F). The hottest period extends between November and February (25–31 °C or 77.0–87.8 °F) while the coldest period occurs between May and August (15–20 °C or 59–68 °F). Annual temperature is 20 °C (68.0 °F). The climate is cool in high mountainous regions.

Tanzania has two major rainfall periods: one is uni-modal (October–April) and the other is bi-modal (October–December and March–May). The former is experienced in southern, central, and western parts of the country, and the latter is found in the north from Lake Victoria extending east to the coast. The bi-modal rainfall is caused by the seasonal migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone.

Tanzania infrequently experiences land-falling tropical cyclones, which can have severe impacts, Cyclone Hidaya for instance. There are recorded examples of such cyclones back as far as 1872.

Climate change in Tanzania is resulting in rising temperatures with a higher likelihood of intense rainfall events (resulting in flooding) and of dry spells (resulting in droughts). Climate change is already impacting the sectors in Tanzania of agriculture, water resources, health and energy. Sea level rise and changes in the quality of water are expected to impact fisheries and aquaculture.

Tanzania produced a National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) in 2007 as mandated by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In 2012, Tanzania produced a National Climate Change Strategy in response to the growing concern of the negative impacts of climate change and climate variability on the country's social, economic and physical environment.

Wildlife and conservation

Tanzania contains around 20% of the species of Africa's enormous warm-blooded animal populace, found over its 21 National parks, reserves, 1 conservation area, and 3 marine parks. Spread over a zone of in excess of 42,000 square kilometres (16,000 square mi) and shaping around 38% of the nation's area. Tanzania has 21 national parks, plus a variety of game and forest reserves, including the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, however the local human population still has an impact on the environment. In western Tanzania, Gombe Stream National Park was the site of Jane Goodall's study of chimpanzee behaviour, which started in 1960.

Tanzania is highly biodiverse and contains a wide variety of animal habitats. On Tanzania's Serengeti plain, white-bearded wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus mearnsi), other bovids and zebra participate in a large-scale annual migration. Tanzania is home to about 130 amphibian and over 275 reptile species, many of them strictly endemic and included in the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red Lists of countries. Tanzania has the largest lion population in the world.

Tanzania had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.13/10, ranking it 54th globally out of 172 countries.

Government and politics

=== Constitution and elections ===

Tanzania is a one-party dominant state with the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party in power. From its formation until 1992, it was the only legally permitted party in the country. This changed on 1 July 1992, when the constitution was amended. It has held power since independence in 1961, and is the longest-serving ruling party in Africa.

John Magufuli won the October 2015 presidential election and secured a two-thirds majority in parliament. The main opposition party in Tanzania since multiparty politics in 1992 is called Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) (Swahili for "Party for Democracy and Progress"). The leader of Chadema party is Freeman Mbowe.

In Zanzibar, the country's semi-autonomous state, The Alliance for Change and Transparency-Wazalendo (ACT-Wazalendo) is considered the main opposition political party. The constitution of Zanzibar requires the party that comes in second in the polls to join a coalition with the winning party. ACT-Wazalendo joined a coalition government with the islands' ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi in December 2020 after Zanzibar disputed elections.

In November 2020, Magufuli once again was declared the winner for his second term as president. Electoral fraud was suspected. The national electoral commission announced that Magufuli received 84%, or about 12.5 million votes and the top opposition candidate, Tundu Lissu received 13%, about 1.9 million votes.

In March 2021, it was announced that Magufuli had died whilst serving in office, meaning that his vice president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, became the country's president.

Tanzania was autocratising in year 2024 according to the V-Dem Democracy Indices.

In the 2025 election, Samia Suluhu Hassan was reelected for another term as president, after she barred the 2 main opposition parties from participating in the election. Protests erupted following the election results, and the protests were handled by the authorities with lethal forces that resulted in hundreds killed and many more maimed.

Executive

The president of Tanzania and the members of the National Assembly are elected concurrently by direct popular vote for five-year terms. The vice-president is elected for a five-year term at the same time as the president and on the same ticket. Neither the president nor the vice-president may be a member of the National Assembly. The president appoints a prime minister from among the members of the National Assembly, subject to confirmation by the assembly, to serve as the government's leader in the assembly. The president selects her cabinet from assembly members. Law enforcement in Tanzania is under the executive branch of government and is administered by the Tanzania Police Force.

Legislature

All legislative power relating to mainland Tanzania and union matters is vested in the National Assembly, which is unicameral and has 393 members. These include members elected to represent constituencies, the attorney general, five members elected by the Zanzibar house of representatives from among its own members, the special women's seats that constitute at least 30% of the seats that any party has in the assembly, the speaker of the assembly (if not otherwise a member of the assembly), and the persons (not more than ten) appointed by the president. The Tanzania Electoral Commission demarcates the mainland into constituencies in the number determined by the commission with the consent of the president.

Judiciary

Tanzania's legal system is based on English common law.

Tanzania has a four-level judiciary. The lowest-level courts on the Tanzanian mainland are the Primary Courts. In Zanzibar, the lowest-level courts are the Kadhi's Courts for Islamic family matters and the Primary Courts for all other cases. On the mainland, appeal is to either the District Courts or the Resident Magistrates Courts. In Zanzibar, appeal is to the Kadhi's Appeal Courts for Islamic family matters and the Magistrates Courts for all other cases. From there, appeal is to the High Court of Mainland Tanzania or Zanzibar. No appeal regarding Islamic family matters can be made from the High Court of Zanzibar. Otherwise, the final appeal is to the Court of Appeal of Tanzania.

The High Court of mainland Tanzania has three divisions – commercial, labour, and land – and 15 geographic zones. The High Court of Zanzibar has an industrial division, which hears only labour disputes.

Mainland and union judges are appointed by the Chief Justice of Tanzania, except for those of the Court of Appeal and the High Court, who are appointed by the president of Tanzania.

Tanzania is a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Zanzibar

The legislative authority in Zanzibar over all non-union matters is vested in the House of Representatives (per the Tanzania constitution) or the Legislative Council (per the Zanzibar constitution).

The Legislative Council has two parts: the president of Zanzibar and the House of Representatives. The president is Zanzibar's head of government and the chairman of the Revolutionary Council, in which the executive authority of Zanzibar is invested. Zanzibar has two vice-presidents, with the first being from the main opposition party in the house. The second is from the party in power and is the leader of government business in the House.

The president and the members of the House of Representatives have five-year terms and can be elected for a second term.

The president selects ministers from members of the House of Representatives, with the ministers allocated according to the number of House seats won by political parties. The Revolutionary Council consists of the president, both vice-presidents, all ministers, the attorney general of Zanzibar, and other house members deemed fit by the president.

The House of Representatives is composed of elected members, ten members appointed by the president, all the regional commissioners of Zanzibar, the attorney general, and appointed female members whose number must be equal to 30 per cent of the elected members. The House determines the number of its elected members with the Zanzibar Electoral Commission determining the boundaries of each election constituency. In 2013, the House had 81 members: fifty elected members, five regional commissioners, the attorney general, ten members appointed by the president, and fifteen appointed female members.

Administrative subdivisions

In 1972, local government on the mainland was abolished and replaced with direct rule from the central government. Local government, however, was reintroduced in the beginning of the 1980s, when the rural councils and rural authorities were re-established. Local government elections took place in 1983, and functioning councils started in 1984. In 1999, a Local Government Reform Programme was enacted by the National Assembly, setting "a comprehensive and ambitious agenda ... [covering] four areas: political decentralization, financial decentralization, administrative decentralization and changed central-local relations, with the mainland government having overriding powers within the framework of the Constitution."

Tanzania is divided into thirty-one regions (mikoa), twenty-six on the mainland and five in Zanzibar (three on Unguja, two on Pemba). The thirty-one regions are divided into 195 districts (wilaya), also known as local government authorities. Of those districts, 45 are urban units, which are further classified as three city councils (Arusha, Mbeya, and Mwanza), twenty municipal councils, and twenty-two town councils.

The urban units have an autonomous city, municipal, or town council and are subdivided into wards and sub-wards (mitaa). The non-urban units have an autonomous district council but are subdivided into village councils or township authorities (first level) and then into hamlets (vitongoji).

The city of Dar es Salaam is unique because it has a city council whose area of jurisdiction overlaps three municipal councils. The mayor of the city council is elected by that council. The twenty-member city council is composed of eleven persons elected by the municipal councils, seven members of the National Assembly, and "Nominated members of parliament under 'Special Seats' for women". Each municipal council also has a mayor. "The City Council performs a coordinating role and attends to issues cutting across the three municipalities", including security and emergency services. The city of Mwanza has a city council whose areal jurisdiction overlaps two municipal councils.

Foreign relations

Foreign policies of Tanzania are in process of review to replace the current New Foreign Policy of 2001, which was the first official foreign policy of Tanzania. Before 2001, Tanzanian foreign policy was dictated by the various presidential declarations of Julius Nyerere, specifically Circular No. 2 of 1964, the Arusha Declaration, and Policy of Foreign Affairs of 1967. These declarations had focused foreign policy primarily on independence and sovereignty, human rights, and African unity. The current New Foreign Policy of 2001 was established to better address the end of colonialism and the Cold War, globalization, market economics and liberalization, and the multi-party state of Tanzania. Its primary focus is economic diplomacy and development.

New Foreign Policy of 2001, which is still used today, has a foundation of seven principles; sovereignty, liberalism, good neighborliness, African unity, non-alignment, economic diplomacy, and global cooperation for economic development and peace. The primary objectives are outlined as the protection and promotion of cultural and economic interests, establishment of relations with other nations driven by economic interest, economic self-sufficiency, internal and global peace, and regional political and economic integration.

A review of current foreign policy is being undertaken by the sixth phase government to replace the current New Foreign Policy of 2001. Foreign Affairs Minister Liberata Mulamula has stated the new policies will maintain the priority of and non-alignment of the 2001 policy while making additional top priorities the climate change and refocusing economic diplomacy with a greater focus on value-added exports and the digital economy.

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