1) Tanzania is a country in central East Africa bordered by 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. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.

2) The United Republic of Tanzania is a unitary republic composed of 26 regions.

3) The current head of state is President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, elected in 2005. Since 1996,
the official capital of Tanzania has been Dodoma, where parliament and some government
offices are located.

4) Between independence and 1996 the major coastal city of Dar es Salaam had been the
country's political capital. Today Dar es Salaam remains the principal commercial city of
Tanzania and the de-facto seat of most government institutions. It is the major seaport for the
country and its landlocked neighbours.

5) The name Tanzania is a portmanteau of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. The two states united in
1964 to form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, which later the same year
was, renamed the United Republic of Tanzania.

6) Years of poorly-implemented "African socialist" policies, including forced relocations to

collective farms, left the country as one of the poorest, least developed and most aid-
dependent in the world. Tanzania started a process of gradual reforms in the mid-1980s.

7) During World War I, an invasion attempt by the British was thwarted by German General
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, who then mounted a drawn out guerrilla warfare campaign against
the British.

8) Tanzania is divided into 26 regions (mkoa), twenty-one on the mainland and five in Zanzibar
(three on Unguja, two on Pemba).

9) Tanzania's population has been estimated to consist of roughly one-third each Muslims,
Christians and followers of indigenous religious groups.

10) The Christian population is mostly composed of Roman Catholics, Orthodox,

Protestants, Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and members of Jehovah's Witnesses.