Tanganyika

Tanganyika refers to the mainland part of what is today the United Republic of Tanzania, and, in historical usage, to the Tanganyika Territory, a British-administered colony established after World War I from the former German East Africa. The territory achieved independence in 1961 under Julius Nyerere, and two years later Tanganyika joined with the island of Zanzibar to form Tanzania.

Geographically, Tanganyika is located in East Africa with a long Indian Ocean coastline. It lies to the north and west of the Indian Ocean and shares land borders with several neighboring countries. The mainland is part of the East African Rift system and includes diverse landscapes ranging from coastal plains to highlands and uplands. A notable geographic feature associated with the region is Lake Tanganyika, one of the deepest and oldest freshwater lakes in the world, which lies along the western boundary and touches Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and Zambia.

Historically, the British administered Tanganyika as a mandate and later a trust territory from 1920 until independence in 1961. The country’s post-independence trajectory culminated in the 1964 union with Zanzibar, which created the modern state of Tanzania. The mainland retains its own administrative divisions and forms the majority of Tanzania’s land area. Economically, Tanganyika has traditionally depended on agriculture as a mainstay, with mining (including gemstones such as tanzanite), and tourism linked to wildlife reserves and the lake region contributing to the economy.