Dar es Salaam

From fishing village to cosmopolitan metropolis

Dar es Salaam is the largest city in Tanzania, as well as its financial and commercial center. Its port is among the most important in East Africa, a hub for sea trade since ancient times.  

In the 19th century, where the tropical metropolis we know today stands, there was a small fishing village called Mzizima. Around 1865, the first Sultan of Zanzibar, Majid bin Said, began building a new city next to the village and named it Dar es Salaam, “abode of peace”.  

Its strategic position, on the edge of trade routes to the Indian Ocean, made it the administrative and commercial center of the territories of East Africa colonised by the Germans and then passed under British rule. With the independence of what was then Tanganyika in 1961, Dar es Salaam became the capital and remained so even in 1964 when the annexation of Zanzibar led to the birth of Tanzania. Only in 1974 was the capital moved to Dodoma.  

Today Dar es Salaam is a city with cosmopolitan architecture, mixing modern skyscrapers with period buildings, built in as many different styles as the cultures that have passed through there. Walking through the neighborhoods you can recognize the Arab, African, German, British and Indian influences.