Country Information
Tanzania covers an area of 970,000 square kilometres, with a population of 37 million people and comprising 127 different tribes. This huge cultural diversity is mirrored in it’s bio-diversity of flora and fauna indicated by the countries five distinct ecological biomes.
Tanzania incorporates one of the worlds 22 biodiversity Hotspots, the eastern arc mountains, defined as such by the number of endemic species per square kilometre of available habitat. The Selous Game Reserve in southern Tanzania is one of the worlds last great expanses of wilderness, with the largest remaining herds of Elephants and numbers of Black Rhino. With its 1.2 million strong migration of Wildebeest, the Serengeti plains are the last place on earth where humankind can still witness such a huge spectacle of movement, reproduction and predation. Tanzania has around 1,100 species of birds of which 806 are resident and 192 are regular migrants.
The highland areas receive significantly more rainfall and are thus heavily forested. In the north of Tanzania, the remnant volcano’s, Kilimanjaro being one of the most famous, are covered in rich Juniperus-Podocarpus montane forest. Running from the north east to the south, the Eastern Arc mountains are dominated by 30-million-year-old forests, which hold high numbers of endemic species whilst Tanzania’s western forests are part of the Albertine Rift.
The short rains (north-east monsoons) usually last from late November until January, the long rains (south-east monsoons) from late February to early May. The highest rainfall is in April, otherwise rainfall is sporadic depending on locality.
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