[4][5] In 1865 or 1866, Sultan Majid bin Said of Zanzibar began building a new city very close to Mzizima[5] and named it Dar es Salaam.

[5] Dar es Salaam fell into decline after Majid's death in 1870, but was revived in 1887 when the German East Africa Company established a station there.

The town's growth was facilitated by its role as the administrative and commercial centre of German East Africa and industrial expansion following the construction of the Central Railway Line in the early 1900s.

Dar es Salaam continued to serve as its capital, even when Tanganyika and the People's Republic of Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania in 1964.

This situation led to the liberalization policy of the 1980s that essentially ended socialism and silenced its proponents within Tanzania's government through political repression.

[11][12]Until the late 1990s, Dar es Salaam was not regarded in the same echelon as Africa's leading cities like Cairo, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Lagos, or Addis Ababa.

The port is prominent for entrepot trade with landlocked countries like Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, and the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

[14] A number of historical buildings and elements of urban planning, such as parts of the harbour and streets going back to colonial times, still exist.

Along with the Azania Front Lutheran Church, built between 1899 and 1902,[15] and the Roman Catholic St. Joseph's Cathedral, constructed around the same period,[16] Ocean Road Hospital also belongs to a number of early historical buildings in Dar es Salaam.

Dar es Salaam Region is divided into five administrative districts,[19] four of which are governed by municipal councils[a] that are affiliated with the city's suburbs or wards.

Dar es Salaam experiences tropical climatic conditions, typified by hot and humid weather throughout much of the year due to its proximity to the equator and the warm Indian Ocean.

[30] Moreover, according to the 2022 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Dar es Salaam is one of 12 major African cities (Abidjan, Alexandria, Algiers, Cape Town, Casablanca, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Durban, Lagos, Lomé, Luanda and Maputo) which would be the most severely affected by the future sea level rise.

The city contains high concentrations of trade and other services and manufacturing compared to other parts of the country, which has about 65 percent of its population in rural areas.

[citation needed] Downtown includes small businesses, many of which are run by traders and proprietors whose families originated in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent—areas of the world with which the settlements of the Tanzanian coast have had long-standing trading relations.

The Dar es Salaam Central Business District is the largest in Tanzania and comprises the Kisutu, Kivukoni, Upanga and Kariakoo areas.

However, since the introduction of the motorcycle transit business known as "bodaboda", most people prefer it,[43][44] allowing them to get into the city faster as compared with the minibuses, which encounter heavy traffic.

The main terminal is located west of Dar es Salaam's central business district in north Yombo Vituka along the Nelson Mandela Road.

Prominent Tanzanian sculptor George Lilanga has donated some of his works to the centre, including decorations of the building's main entrance.

[51] Throughout the years, the radio in Dar es Salaam has played a major role in the dissemination of music, because many people do not have television; cassettes are more common than CDs.

The National Museum is dedicated to the history of Tanzania; most notably, it exhibits some of the bones of Paranthropus boisei that were among the findings of Louis Leakey at Olduvai.

In 2016, there was a breakthrough discovery in Northern Tanzania by a scientist, from the University of Dar es Salaam, of footprints thought to be of a hominid that predates Homo sapiens.

The Makumbusho Cultural Centre & Village Museum,[52] located in the outskirts of the city on the road to Bagamoyo, showcases traditional huts from 16 different Tanzanian ethnic groups.

[56] The Tanzanian National Stadium hosts football clubs based in Dar es Salaam: Young Africans and Simba.

Tanzanian professional boxer Francis Checka is the current World Boxing Federation (WBF) Super Middleweight Champion.

Installation of the trans-Indian Ocean backbone cable (SEACOM) in 2009 has, in theory, made Internet access much more readily available in Dar es Salaam in particular and in East Africa in general.

Internet cafés are found in the city centre, and free Wi-Fi hotspots are available in various government and nongovernment institutions as well as public transport.

Mobile-telephone access to the Internet via 4G is still relatively expensive, though 5G is making its way through major cities and towns as of 2022[update] with plans to go nationwide in the advanced stages.

Dar es Salaam's first radio station began operation in the early 1950s with "little more equipment than a microphone and a blanket hung over a wall..." This project was overseen by Edward Twining.

[65] Flooding incidents destroy bridges and roads, disrupt transportation, increase risk of diseases such as cholera and skin infection, and are a barrier to reducing poverty.

[65] Dar es Salaam has the highest concentration of educational opportunities in Tanzania[citation needed] and the city is home to several institutions of higher learning.