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Tanzania
Home to Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, Tanzania is also
the home of some of the world’s most ancient human remains, dating back 2 million
years, found at Olduvai Gorge. Although available evidence is inconclusive,
many of the early stages of human evolution may have taken place in the
Tanzanian section of the Great Rift Valley. The name Tanzania replaced the
former name Tanganyika after the incorporation of the Muslim island of Zanzibar
in 1964, following its independence from British rule in 1961. Tanzania has
been spared much of the socio-political turmoil that followed independence. Its
first post-independence leader Julius Nyerere sought to avoid the post-colonial
trap that bound colonies to former colonialists through trade. Former colonies
supplied cash crops, farmed on the best of all lands a country has, leading to
a total neglect of food crop farming for the local population. Government
policies sought to avoid post-independence dependencies such as in countries
like Nigeria, which were net exporters of food, but later on became dependent
on foreign foods, purchased in the international food market. Tanzania’s
solution involved socialist collectivization of agriculture, which resulted in
the relocation of over thirteen million people. The driving ideology of this
African Socialism, as it later came to be known, is called, Ujama
(family-hood). Although the experiment improved literacy and health services
helping Tanzania become one of the most literate in Sub-Saharan Africa, it
proved to be a failure economically.
Tanzania
has a population of 35.3 million (year 2000), the fifth largest in Africa, with
an average national density of 97 per square mile. The population is not evenly
distributed, however. Very high densities are found near fertile soils around
Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the shores of Lake Nyasa. Comparatively low densities are
found throughout much of the interior of the country. The government reversed
the policies of resettling people in registered villages after the Ujama
movement proved to be of very limited effectiveness. The population consists
mostly of members of ethnic groups numbering over s hundred, the majority of
which speak a Bantu language. The largest ethnic groups are the Nyamwezi and
Sukuma, each representing about 20 percent of the population. Other groups with
sizeable populations include the Haya, Ngonde, Chagga, Gogo, Ha, Here, Nyakusa,
Nyika, Nkoni, Yao and Masai. The population also includes a minority of
Indians, Pakistani, and people of Goan origin as well as small Arab and
European communities. Three quarters of the population lives in urban areas.
To view the population density map of Tanzania, please visit:
http://geoweb.fao.org/GBR/GeoWEB.exe$ConsoleDefault?Ctry=TAN
Demographically, Tanzania is still at the early stages of the transition.
The crude birth rate of 42 per thousand and total fertility rate of 5.6 births per
woman are among the highest in the world (year 2000). The Demographic and
Health Survey (DHS) of 1992 showed that fertility levels have come down rapidly
from the figure of 6.9 births per woman in 1978. Almost half of the population
is below the age of seventeen, indicating both a high fertility in the past,
and also a large number of people approaching the childbearing years. Based on
survey data an average number desired child was calculated to be 6 per woman.
This may have been caused, among other things, by the low level of family
planning acceptance. Less than a quarter of married women in their reproductive
years are taking modern means of birth control. The DHS also showed that urban
and educated women prefer smaller families, and have lower fertility.
The report also covers the causes of mortality among both urban and rural
populations. The infant mortality rate remains steady at 92 per thousand
births, the mortality of children fewer than five has taken a very significant
downturn, decreasing from approximately 167 per thousand in 1978, to 141 in
1991. Tanzania has made remarkable gains in the field of public health
including maternal and child health. Use of antenatal care is high, and half of
women deliver with the assistance of medical professionals. More than half of 5
year-olds are fully vaccinated. Yet, the level of malnutrition is high. More
than two in five children are chronically malnourished.
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