Tanga Description

Tanga Region Location Situated in the north-eastern corner of Tanzania, the Region of Tanga links the well–known Kilimanjaro Region with Dar es Salaam in the south and is close to the Kenyan border, covers 27,348 km2 (3% of the total area of the country) and has an estimated population of nearly two million inhabitants, with at least 300.000 living in Tanga City. While most people in the hinterland are small farmers and livestock keepers, the coastal rural inhabitants live off fishing and small-scale farming. Others are engaged in trades, boat building, salt harvesting, and charcoal making. Tanga has the second largest port in Tanzania.

Tanga region offers its visitors a wide range of beautiful places to visit: a great variety of landscapes from the stretched coast with mangroves and the long Indian Ocean coastline with its sheltered bays and lagoons, such as Moa Bay, Manza Bay, Kwale Bay, Tanga Bay, and Mwambani Bay; Kigombe, Pangani and Ushongo have marvelous beaches – all with fringing and offshore coral reefs and sandbanks. They are bordered by a range of uninhabited islands – some with historical lighthouses and ruins such as Ulenge Island and Toten Island. Some offer accommodation in small resorts. The most interesting destinations to visit in and around Tanga Region include the Historic Tanga City center, Amboni Caves, and off-shore islands – Toten, Ulenge, Yambe, and Karange, Maziwe Island off Pangani, Gallanos Hot Springs, and Tongoni Ruins.

Tanga Regions hosts several protected areas: Saadani and Mkomazi National Parks, Amani Nature Reserve, Coelacanth Marine Park, and Maziwe Island Marine Reserve. The region also has lush mangrove forests and pristine semi-arid forests along the coast and on the islands. Tropical rainforests of the scenic Usambara Mountains reach up to 2,000 meters above sea level and are part of the international biodiversity hotspot “Eastern Arc Mountains” with their rich endemic of flora and fauna. Particularly famous are the “African Violets” (called “Usambara Violets” in Germany). Other attractions include Maasai and Paré settlements in Handeni and Korogwe and the famous Tanga sisal estates.

Tanga region has a fascinating history as one of the oldest settlements along the East African coast. The word “Tanga” means “sail” in the Kiswahili language, an indication that the protected Tanga Bay has over many centuries offered a safe haven for local fishers and the thriving Indian Ocean trade along the East African coast. Another translation of “Tanga” refers to the Bondei word “farm”.

In the scramble for Africa over the last decades of the 19th century, German commercial interests and later the German government conquered the inland, bought the coastal strip from the Sultan and developed the colony as ‘German East Africa’. With its protected port and fertile hinterland, especially in the Usambara Mountains, Tanga became a centre of German colonization and also an administrative centre up to 1890 when Dar es Salaam was made the capital of the emerging colony.
Rapid colonial infrastructural and economic development followed from 1889 after the end of the bloody ‘Bushiri war’ – an uprising of local Arab rulers (accused of being slave traders by the Germans) and their followers against the German occupation and the sale of the coast by the Sultan. To open up the hinterland and especially the fertile and cool Usambara mountains for economic development and trade, a railway was built from Tanga to Moshi and a road network developed, including the scenic winding paved road from Mombo up the mountains to the emerging district centre Wilhelmsthal (now Lushoto). Kiswahili was made the official language of the colony and African boys were offered education in the (still existing) Tanga School to join the lower ranks of the colonial administration. Tropical diseases were researched and a public health system was introduced with large-scale screening and early forms of treatment of cholera, tuberculosis, malaria and sleeping sickness among others.

Tanga town was developed with a range of public, commercial and residential buildings. At the end of the 19th century Tanga already had around 5,000 inhabitants. It was an important centre for trade and settlement together with Dar es Salaam, Ujiji, Tabora, Bagamoyo, Pangani and Kilwa Kivinje – the latter five being either slaving ports or caravan crossings. By 1913, Tanga was the fourth largest town in Tanzania; by Independence in 1961 it was second.
Throughout colonial history, the main source of Tanga’s economic wealth was Sisal, which was introduced from Florida, US in 1893 and soon turned Tanga Region into the World’s main producer and exporter of this profitable crop. This lasted for half a century up to Independence, when nationalization resulted in the collapse of the industry within a few years.

World War I brought massive disruption to the economic development of the prospering colony. Germany and Britain fought a long-drawn-out proxy war in order to tie up each other’s forces and keep them off the European battlegrounds. In November 1914 Tanga made military history with the famous “Battle of Tanga”: with help of the newly built railway, the German colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck shifted overnight his troops of settlers and Askari soldiers to Tanga to defend the town against British warships. The Germans won this battle even though British-Indian troops outnumbered the German forces 8 to 1. The British claimed afterwards that the Germans were helped by wild bees that got upset by shelling their nests in the trees. They actually stung and chased all troops on the ground.

The British retaliated a year later by bottling up and sinking the legendary German warship “Königsberg” in the Rufiji delta, thus gaining control of the coastal waters of the German colony. Cut off from supplies of their homeland and often outnumbered, the Germans are said to have invented modern guerrilla warfare that avoids open battle and ties the adversary’s troops with hit-and-run tactics and rapid movements over vast areas. According to a popular myth, fighting in East Africa continued for two weeks after the Allied forces’ victory in Europe, because the two armies could not be found in the bush, being so far away from any means of communication! Germany lost what was considered her most favoured colony and Britain ruled Tanganyika under a UN mandate until Independence in 1961.

Mwalimu (Teacher) Julius  Kambarage Nyerere became the first President of independent Tanganyika (called Tanzania after the union with Zanzibar in 1964) and he remains a national legend today. He is seen as one of the few African leaders who could not be accused of corruption, and who resigned from power voluntarily and peacefully.

He introduced a one-party state and nationalised the economy. His policy of ‘’Ujamaa and African Socialism’ was popular among – and very generously supported by – European left-wing intellectuals and governments, and to a certain extent also by the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of the Eastern Block.

This change of policy after Independence had various impacts on Tanzania, and particularly on the prosperous Tanga Region, due to its relatively export-oriented economy. Most sisal and other plantations, many businesses and buildings in Tanga town were nationalised. Villages were obliged to move and combine their land for communal farms in the so-called villagization campaign. As food and cash crops had to be sold to the government at fixed and mostly very low prices only, farmers stopped producing for the market and returned to the subsistence economy. Within a decade, the formerly thriving economy of Tanga collapsed. The downturn of the Sisal Industry was also accelerated by a decline in demand due to upcoming synthetic fibres.

Mwalimu Nyerere realised that the country was in trouble and stepped down in 1985 to allow his successors to liberalise the economy, and later introduce multi-party policies, which followed in the mid-nineties. From the early nineties, the Tanzanian economy started recovering and is now growing fast under our current presidential leadership of Dr John Joseph Magufuli.

But Tanga Region has not yet caught up with its former glory; Tanga City remains a relatively quiet, laid-back town – something that, ironically, is one of the attractions for tourists who much prefer peaceful and unspoilt places off the beaten track.

Tanga is one of the 26 regions of Tanzania. Its Regional Headquarters is in Tanga City, the biggest town and the economic centre of the Region. Tanga Region is divided into eight districts, each having its own administration.

Climate
The coastal area is warm with an average temperature of around 28° C (82° F). Sea breezes make the climate very pleasant all year. The central plateau around Korogwe and Handeni experiences hot days and cool nights. In the hilly country between the coast and the northern highlands temperatures can drop at nights below 10° C (50° F) in the “winter season” (June to August). The hottest months are from October to February. The main rainy season is from April to late May when it rains mostly at night, leaving the day with some clouds and rainy intervals.

Excellent tarmac roads to Arusha,  Moshi, Nairobi (Kenya), and Dar es Salaam Good all-weather road to Mombasa  (Kenya)

(Airport in Tanga City, Airstrips at Ushongo/Pangani  and Saadani N.P)
(Boat   From/to Tanga City – Pemba From/to Pangani – Pemba + Zanzibar)

Distances (from Tanga City)
Dar es Salaam 355 km
Arusha  440 km
Kilimanjaro Int. Airport    390 km
Moshi  350 km
Mombasa 200 km
Pangani  45 km
Lushoto  160 km
Korogwe  95 km
Handeni  165 km
Muheza  35 km