On July 2024, it was official that Dodoma has surpassed Arusha to become the third largest city in Tanzania on both infrastructure and population measures.

As a result, Dar es Salaam remained the commercial and maritime capital of Tanzania with Dodoma retaining the state house Ikulu, and a large number of government functions.

Originally a small market town known as Idodomya, the modern Dodoma was founded in 1907 by German colonists during construction of the Tanzanian central railway.

The layout followed the typical colonial planning of the time with a European quarter segregated from a native village.

[5] In 1967, following independence, the government invited Canadian firm Project Planning Associates Ltd to draw up a master plan to help control and organise the then capital of the country, Dar es Salaam, which was undergoing rapid urbanisation and population growth.

The plan was cancelled in 1972, in part due to its failure to adequately address the historical and social problems associated with the city.

[7][8] With an already-established town at a major crossroads, the Dodoma region had an agreeable climate, room for development[9] and was located in the geographic centre of the nation.

[8][10] A new capital was seen as a more economically viable alternative than attempting to reorganise and restructure Dar es Salaam and was idealised as a way of diverting development away from continued concentration in a single coastal city that was seen as anathema to the government's goal of socialist unity and development.

As befitted Tanzania's development at the time, the car was seen as secondary in importance to public transports such as buses which were then utilised by much of the population.

These competing proposals, some paid for by foreign governments as a form of aid and others by the firms involved, were presented as early as 1978.

[12][7] Dodoma was envisaged as a nation-building project to cement a newly post-colonial independence identity and direction in Tanzania, and is similar to projects in Nigeria (Abuja), Côte d'Ivoire (Yamoussoukro), Botswana (Gaborone), Malawi (Lilongwe) and Mauritania (Nouakchott).

Dodoma averages 610 millimetres or 24 inches of rainfall per year, the vast majority of which occurs during its wet season between December and April.

The education is based on the English National curriculum and the school offers students the opportunity to take IGCSE examinations.

[citation needed] North of the city centre, Dodoma Airport is managed by the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority.

[19] However, in December 2019, a US$272M loan plan was announced to build a new, far bigger airport outside the city with increased runway length and weight-bearing capacity.

Other older clubs, include CDA, Waziri Mkuu, Kurugenzi, Mji Mpwapwa, and Dundee.