Kisaki
| Kisaki | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Coordinates | 7 ° 27 ′ S , 37 ° 36 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Tanzania | ||
| Morogoro | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | TZ-16 | ||
| Residents | 5000 (2005) | ||
Kisaki is a small town in the Morogoro region in Tanzania ( East Africa ) with around 5000 inhabitants (2005 estimate).
history
The place was founded at the end of the 18th century as a base for Arab traders and slave hunters . At the beginning of the 19th century, this was an important transshipment point, as the caravan routes from the northeast and southeast converged here and new caravans to the coast, via Bagamoyo to Zanzibar , were assembled here. The explorers Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke passed the place in 1858 on their trip to Lake Victoria and described it as an important trading post. With the ban on the slave trade , which was enforced more and more towards the end of the 19th century, first by Great Britain and then also by the German Empire in the newly founded colony of German East Africa , the Arabs left the place. Due to the relative sterility of the soil, the high distribution of the tse-tse fly and the low population density, Kisaki was of no importance to the German and later also to the British colonial administration.
Infrastructure and the present
Since the moderate increase in ecotourism in the nearby Selous Game Reserve , a modest upswing has also started in Kisaki. It is a train station on the TAZARA railway line from Dar es Salaam to Zambia , has a runway for small aircraft and is connected to the district capital of Morogoro via a runway that can be used all year round . The supply of merchandise, food and petrol is now reliable, so that the location now functions as a regional center for the employees of the game reserve administration and the lodges located there.