Dar es Salaam is the former capital city of Tanzania and a city in East and Central Africa with two of the tallest buildings. The city covers an area of about 1393 sq. km with a total population of more than 4,364,541 (Population Census of 2012) people with more than 120 tribes living together. Dar es Salaam has a neighborhood with regions like Morogoro, Mtwara, Pwani, and the Zanzibar islands.
Dar es Salaam is located at the equator line and is geographically classified as having a tropical climate with a high temperature of more than 30°C almost throughout the year. Two rain seasons have been experienced in Dar es Salaam, which are high seasons that occur in April and May. The second, shorter rain season occurs in November.
The city has a port that serves the town and most of its neighboring countries, like Rwanda, Zambia, Burundi, and Congo. As a business capital, Dar es Salaam attracts many people for commerce, which contributes to its higher population compared to other cities in Tanzania. Also, Dar es Salaam is located on the shores of the Eastern Indian Ocean, where citizens get to benefit from it in doing business and leisure activities.
Municipalities of Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam is segmented into five municipalities which are Ilala, Temeke, Ubungo, Kinondoni and Kigamboni. Each district is divided into wards that ultimately form streets. The following are municipalities of the city with their most well-known areas (streets).
Kinondoni municipality
It is the municipality, which is estimated to have a population of about 1,775,049. Areas found in Kinondoni are Masaki, Oysterbay and Ada Estate, where Oysterbay beach or currently a white sand beach for leisure and recreation activities. Mikocheni, Msasani, Sinza, Kijitonyama, Magomeni, Kinondoni, Mwenge, Mbezi Beach, Tandale, Mwananyamala-Kisiwani and Kigogo are some of the famous streets in Kinondoni Municipality.
Temeke municipality
Temeke municipality is very famous, and it is where most low-income people live. There are some processing industries that are found there, like the Azam industry at Buguruni. National stadium and Uhuru stadium, as well as the Azam football pitch, are found within this municipality. Saba-Saba grounds where exhibitions and trade fairs take place, are available in this district. The district comprises areas like Kurasini, Temeke, Mbagala, Changombe, Kijichi, Buguruni, Mtoni and Tandika.
Ilala Municipality
Most government offices and ministries are located in this municipality. Currently, all ministries have shifted to Dodoma city, the capital of Tanzania. Ilala is the center of business and has a high concentration of people. The areas that make up Ilala are Upanga, Kisutu, Kariakoo, Segera, Tabata, Ukonga and Ilala.
Ubungo Municipality
The municipality is very popular because of having an international bus terminal whereby more than 28,000 buses that do their trips within and outside the country arrive at the terminal every day. There is a presence of five-star hotels known as BLUE PEARL HOTEL (the former Kilimanjaro Hotel).
Kigamboni Municipality
This area is also known as the south beach of Dar es Salaam, where the access to Kigamboni is mainly by ferry, though currently there is a Kigamboni bridge that people also use when crossing to this suburb. Economic activities in this area are well diverse among its population.
Leisure & Tours
Presence of beaches like Cocoa Beach, Msasani Beach, Kijichi Beach, and others creates recreational and leisure opportunities for residents and tourists who visit Dar es Salaam. The presence of monuments like askari monument at Posta provides another chance for tourists to do Tanzania safari tourism activities.
People also may decide to visit the national museum as part of tourism in the city, where they can acquire a lot of information on the evolution of Tanzania. This national museum is located at Posta as well. Apart from all these areas, the configuration of the city deserves to be an attraction on which tourists may do walking safaris, biking, and cultural and city tours. In Dar es Salaam there are a variety of nightclubs and casinos where people can go for relaxation of minds for example Maisha club that located at Mbagala Rangi tatu
Accommodation
The city also has hotels where guests can relax before going to their destinations. For example, clients are going to the southern circuit or northern circuit for tourism activities; after landing at Dar es salaam airport can be transferred to hotels such as the Dar es salaam Serena hotel, Sea cliff hotel, Golden Tulip hotel and Hyatt Regency hotel.
CULTURE
Art
There are people who base their art crafts especially painting and carving, on woods of different tree species. Famous painting area is found at Oyster Bay, where tingatinga-style painted pictures and many others are sold, as well as wood carvings of different shapes.
Music
In Tanzania we have got different music flavors like bongo flavour, Taarab, Singeli and mchiriku wich are home-based flavors where Dar es Salaam is the base of all these Tanzanian flavors. Also, we do have the best artists like Diamond, Ali Kiba, Vanessa Mdee, and so many others.
TRANSPORTATION
Transport system in Dar es Salaam is adequate because all forms of Transport are available in this city, which are land transport, water transport and air transport each of these serves people in their daily activities within and outside the city and even outside the country.
Land transport
This is commonly used in the city compared to any other form of transport because of the economic and geographic location of the city, whereby residents’ ability to use air transport is not strong enough for them to afford it. Here there are two major kind of land classification, which is road transport and railway transport
Road transport
Road transport is the leading means used by residents because people own their own private cars and there are these public buses and minibuses inside and outside the city. Also, the project of Usafiri Dar Rapid Transit (UDA-RT) was established two years ago to solve the problem of traffic jams in the city; this was as a solution to the failure of UDA (Usafiri Dar) that uses normal min-buses. The project of bus rapid transit, “mradi wa mabasi ya mwendo kasi,” has been reducing the problem of traffic jams in this largest and most populated city in Tanzania.
Railway transport
Railway transport also helps people to do transport inside the city as the mechanism to reduce traffic jams and also to transport people or luggage via the central railway (TRL—Tanzania Railway Limited) and the international one known as TAZARA (Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority). There are some trains that do their trips within the city, but others cross borders of the city to other cities in Tanzania like Tabora, Morogoro, Dodoma, Singida and Kigoma; also, some do their safaris in neighboring countries like Zambia and South Africa.
Air transport
In Tanzania, Dar es salaam used to be the hub that connects different airstrips to other countries outside the country. Dar es Salaam is where Julius Nyerere International Airport, with modern constructed terminals, is used to transport people within and outside the country. Different flights from different parts of the world land in this airport. Furthermore, domestic flights land at the domestic airport in Dar es salaam then clients are transferred to the international airport to take their international return flight after coming from their safari.
Marine transport
Residents also have access to different islands like Zanzibar, Mbudya, mafia and others by using marine transport vessels like ships and boats. People have been using the ferry, especially from Kivukoni to Kigamboni and the same on the way back, though currently, the government has constructed a big and beautiful bridge called Nyerere Bridge that people use from other parts of Dar es Salaam to Kigamboni. From Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar there is no way to reach the desired destination other than using only two types of transport which are water and air transport.
Education
Speaking of universal education, Dar es Salaam has several universities that provide education for different professionals like engineers, medical personnel, tourism specialists, teaching and so many others. The most famous university is called the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), Dar Es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE), Kampala International University (KIU), or Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences.
Places of Worship
Having more than 120 tribes in Tanzania, Tanzania also has different religions in Dar es Salaam like Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and so many that are difficult to identify. In Christianity, there is Roman Catholicism, whereby dar es salaam is the headquarters of roman catholic in Tanzania and the only city where the cardinal post is held as far as church matters are concerned. Also, there are other churches like Pentecostal churches, seventh-day churches, protestant churches and so on. In Islam, there are only two classes which are Shia and Sunni.
NOTE: Currently Dar es Salaam is not a capital city of Tanzania and the government has been making progress to shift all the ministries to Dodoma city, which was approved to be the city in 2018 by the president of the United Republic of Tanzania.
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