About Nelia's Country

Tanzania, formed in 1964 when Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged, is East Africa's largest country. Tanzania displays great diversity, including a low-lying coastal belt, a highland plateau populated by r read more...ich wildlife reserves and the island of Zanzibar, a former spice center. It is also home to Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain. The climate ranges from tropical to nearly temperate in the highlands. Little is known about the earliest history of Tanzania. Few artifacts before the Christian era have been found. Tanzania's vast resources have helped create industries in tobacco, sugar, diamond and gold mining, cement and tourism. Yet Tanzania remains one of the poorest countries in the world. The economy depends heavily on agriculture, which provides 85 percent of exports and employs 80 percent of the work force. But topography and climatic conditions, however, limit cultivated crops to only four percent of the land area. Swahili and English are the official languages for Tanzania's 130 ethnic groups. About one third are Christian and one third are Muslim. It's estimated that nearly 1 million people, or six percent of adults in Tanzania, have HIV/AIDS. Nearly 100 percent of the country's population is native African. Compassion works in 12 of the country's 21 zones. European explorers, including the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone, penetrated the country in the mid-nineteenth century and it was colonized by Germany and later Great Britain, from which it gained freedom in 1961. From independence in 1961 until the mid-1980s, Tanzania was a one-party state with a socialist model of economic development. Beginning in the mid-1980s, under the administration of President Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Tanzania undertook a number of political and economic reforms. Two parliamentary by-elections in early 1994 were the first-ever multiparty elections in Tanzanian history