[3] The municipality is situated on the lower slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, a dormant volcano that is the highest mountain in Africa.

Father Schneider, a missionary active in East Africa during the period, noted that by 1906, Moshi had developed into an important politico-military and commercial center.

[8] Beginning in the 1920s, after Tanganyika became a British mandate, Moshi experienced significant urban population growth.

In the first half of the 20th century, Moshi was traditionally an important railway town, center of banana agriculture, and commercial producer of pyrethrum.

Moshi's lower altitude and dry climate mean that the main crops grown on the higher slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro, coffee[14] and bananas,[15] do not thrive there.

The surrounding areas in Moshi district are known for extensive farms of maize and beans, grown once per year during the long rainy season (known as "masika" in Kiswahili).

[15][17] The Kilimanjaro Native Co-operative Union was established in 1929[14] by the district commissioner, Charles Cecil Farquharson Dundas.

[14] In recent years, efforts have been made to diversify Moshi's agricultural economy beyond traditional coffee production.

The cooperative expanded significantly, benefiting over 900 local farmers and establishing new facilities to support milk production and processing[18] Like all of Tanzania, Moshi has universal primary education.

[20] Moshi hosts a number of higher education facilities, which include the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College (KCMCo), the Stefano Moshi Memorial University College (SMMUCo), the Mwenge Catholic University (MWECAU), the Moshi Co-operative University (MoCU), the College of African Wildlife Management (CAWM), the Kilimanjaro School of Pharmacy (KSP), and the Tanzania Training Centre for Orthopaedic Technologists (TATCOT).

[27] Next to KCMC is the Kilimanjaro Centre for Community Ophthalmology (KCCO), which was founded in 2001 and is co-directed by Dr. Paul Courtright and Dr. Susan Lewallen.

[28] The KCCO is "dedicated to the elimination of avoidable blindness through programmes, training, and research focusing on the delivery of sustainable and replicable community ophthalmology services".

[29] The KCCO has an "official memorandum of understanding ... with the Department of Ophthalmology and Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College under which the KCCO assumes or shares responsibility (subject to specific funding grants) for many teaching activities, running workshops and seminars, supervising the ... [Ophthalmic Resource Centre for Eastern Africa], serving in an advisory capacity for planning Eye Department services, conducting epidemiologic and clinical research in prevention or treatment of vision loss or related fields, and serves on committees".

KCRC was established in 2006 with the support of the Dutch government through the Netherlands-African partnership for Capacity development and Clinical interventions Against Poverty-related disease (NACCAP).

In late 2010, its surgical services were suspended indefinitely by the Government and Private Hospitals Inspection Committee of the Tanzanian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.

Moshi hosts the Kilimanjaro Marathon, Tanzania's largest sport event, held annually at the end of February or beginning of March since 2002.

Hockey is an active sport in Moshi and it holds tournaments as well such as the annual Nyerere Cup hosted by the Sikh Community.

The clubs host various national and regional events, annually, coordinated by the Tanzania Golf Union.

The last Mangi Mkuu (Paramount Chief) of the Chagga, Thomas Lenana Marealle II, whose palace was located in Moshi, worked for the independence of Tanganyika when it was still a United Nations trust territory under British administration.

In his speech to the United Nations Trusteeship Council on 17 June 1957, he said that Tanganyika could become self-governing within ten to fifteen years.

[47] In 1953, Journalist John Gunther described Moshi as "the kind of town Somerset Maugham, if he ever wrote about Africa, might have invented.