Mainland Tanzania
On the floor of the rift are a number of large salt lakes, including Natron in the north, Manyara in the south, and Eyasi in the southwest.
Just to the south of Lake Natron is Ol Doinyo Lengai with an elevation of 3,188 m (10,459 ft),[2] the world's only active volcano to produce natrocarbonatite lava.
To the west of the Crater Highlands lies Serengeti National Park, which is famous for its lions, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, and buffalo plus the annual migration of millions of white bearded wildebeest.
The western portion of the country between Lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, and Malawi consists of flat land that has been categorised by the World Wildlife Fund as part of the Central Zambezian miombo woodlands ecoregion.
The southern half of this plateau is grassland within the Eastern miombo woodlands ecoregion, the majority of which is covered by the huge Selous National Park.
Tanganyika as a geographical and political entity did not take shape before the period of High Imperialism; its name only came into use after German East Africa was transferred to the United Kingdom as a mandate by the League of Nations in 1920.
[4] In January 1866, the Scottish explorer and missionary David Livingstone, who crusaded against the slave trade, went to Zanzibar, from where he sought the source of the Nile, and established his last mission at Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.
Henry Morton Stanley, who had been sent in a publicity stunt to find him by the New York Herald newspaper, greeted him with the now famous words "Dr Livingstone, I presume?"
[5]: page 90 Prince Otto von Bismarck's government in 1885 granted imperial protection to the German East Africa Company established by Peters with Bismark's encouragement.
[5]: page 90 At the Berlin Conference of 1885, the fact that Kigoma had been established and supplied from Zanzibar and Bagamoyo led to the inclusion of German East Africa into the territory of the Conventional Basin of the Congo, to Belgium's advantage.
The Congo Free State was eventually to give up its claim on Kigoma (its oldest station in Central Africa) and on any territory to the east of Lake Tanganyika, to Germany.
[6] The British then attacked the town in November 1914 but were thwarted by General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's forces at the Battle of Tanga.
[6] In October 1916, General Smuts wrote, "With the exception of the Mahenge Plateau [the Germans] have lost every healthy or valuable part of their Colony".
[6] Cut-off from Germany, General Von Lettow by necessity conducted a guerilla campaign throughout 1917, living off the land and dispersing over a wide area.
[5]: page 246 The first British civilian administrator after the end of World War I was Sir Horace Archer Byatt CMG, appointed by Royal Commission on 31 January 1919.
[8]: page 5 "His work ... was of great significance in the development of colonial administrative policy, being associated especially with the vigorous attempt to establish a system of 'Indirect Rule' through the traditional indigenous authorities.
[8]: page 6 In 1926, the Legislative Council was established with seven unofficial (including two Indians) and thirteen official members, whose function was to advise and consent to ordinances issued by the governor.
[8]: page 6 In 1954, Julius Nyerere, a school teacher who was then one of only two Tanganyikans educated to university level, organized a political party—the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU).
[11]: page 13 Many Africans were government servants, business employees, labourers, and producers of important cash crops during this period.
[11]: page 13 The white population were missionaries, professional and government servants, and owners and managers of farms, plantations, mines, and other businesses.
"[11]: page 13 Britain, through its colonial officer David Gordon Hines, encouraged the development of farming co-operatives to help convert subsistence farmers to cash husbandry.
