Tanzania: Tanzania Geography Profile 2013

Tanzania, or United Republic of Tanzania, a country in East Africa. It consists of the former British territories of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, which united in 1964. Tanzania lies just south of the Equator on the Indian Ocean. The country's greatest dimensions are slightly additional than 700 miles (1,100 km) both north-south and east-west. Its area is 364,900 square miles (945,087 km2).

There are a lot of outstanding adventure travel destinations in Africa, but there is only one Tanzania. Here stretch the plains of the Serengeti; here shine the snows of Kilimanjaro; here, too, lies the mythic isle of Zanzibar. For anyone who has ever dreamt of Africa, those names are poetic invocations, calling up in the mind's eye all of the fabled attractions of the continent itself.

Location, Geography & Climate

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 major of the East African nations, and it possesses a 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 majority 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). Within the Serengeti is Olduvai Gorge, the site of the famous discoveries by the Leakeys of fossil fragments of the very earliest ancestors of Homo sapiens. The Serengeti as well contains the marvelous Eden of Ngorongoro, 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 major 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 (next 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 (before Lake Nyala), the third major lake on the continent. East of Lake Malawi is the enormous expanse of the Selous Game Reserve, the major in Africa with over 21,000 sq. mi. (55,000 sq. km.) and perhaps additional than 50,000 elephants.

Moving northeast from Selous brings one to Tanzania's low, lush coastal strip, the location of its major city, Dar es Salaam. Dar Es Salaam is the embarkation point for Zanzibar, the fabled emerald isle that lies off the Tanzanian coast.

The climate of Tanzania varies completely a bit, considering that its environment includes both the highest and the lowest points on the continent. While the narrow lowland coastal region is consistently hot and humid, the central regions of Tanzania are sufficiently elevated so as to offer much cooler temperatures. The rainy seasons extend from November to early January and from March to May.