Mwanza
| Mwanza | |||
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| Coordinates | 2 ° 31 ′ S , 32 ° 54 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Tanzania | ||
| Mwanza | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | TZ-18 | ||
| height | 1144 m | ||
| Residents | 706,453 (2012) | ||
| Post Code | 33101 | ||
| Culture | |||
| Twin cities |
 Wurzburg , Germany Tampere , Finland
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 Mwanza, 2005
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Mwanza is a city in Tanzania with 706,453 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Mwanza region and is located directly on Lake Victoria .
history
Foundation and German colonial times
The city lies below the hill from which John Hanning Speke was the first European to discover Lake Victoria for the western world in 1858. The authorities of German East Africa decided in 1890 to establish a district branch on the hill in what is now the city center and gave it the name Muansa - probably as a misunderstanding from the word "Nyanza" from the language of the local Sukuma , which simply means "lake" means. From 1892 the colonial authorities began with the planned construction of the city and the port at the foot of the Boma . At the turn of the century, large cotton plantations began to be built on the banks of the lake. During the observation period between 1894 and 1915, a weather station of the Deutsche Seewarte was active near Mwanza . In 1910 the construction of a radio station for wireless telegraphy began, which began work on March 20, 1911. During range tests in April of the same year, connections were made with the steamers Mayor and General in the Indian Ocean . In the First World War the city was founded in 1916 by British troops occupied .
British colonial and independence
With the discovery of gold in the 1920s and the completion of the connection to the Tanganyika Railway from Tabora in 1928, the city experienced a significant boom and population explosion. After the gold deposits dried up and during the period of African socialism in the 1970s, the region on Lake Victoria fell far behind economically. In addition, there were bombings by the Ugandan air force as part of the 2nd Ugandan-Tanzanian War in 1978, which caused considerable damage in the city center and at the port. Only with the discovery of gold in the early 1990s in the neighboring region of Geita , where among other things the company AngloGold Ashanti the open pit Geita operates, the city experienced an upswing again. The civil wars in nearby Rwanda and Burundi led to the use of the Mwanza infrastructure as a hub for humanitarian aid for government and non-governmental aid organizations from around the world, and to a small economic miracle in the entire region.
Bukoba disaster
The city also became known during the Bukoba disaster when the Bukoba capsized about 30 kilometers north of the city on May 21, 1996 on the way from Bukoba to Mwanza and later sank. Between 600 and 800 people were killed. The sinking of the Bukoba was the largest shipping disaster in the history of East Africa and one of the largest shipping disasters on freshwater lakes worldwide.
Population development
The following overview shows the number of inhabitants by area since the 1978 census.
| year | population |
|---|---|
| 1978 (census) | 110,553 |
| 1988 (census) | 172.287 |
| 2002 (census) | 385.810 |
| 2012 (census) | 706.453 |
present
Mwanza has developed into one of the largest industrial and economic centers in the country due to its advantageous central location. The international airport Mwanza Lake Victoria International ( main base of the Tanzanian Air Force ) has the longest runway in Tanzania and is served by scheduled flights twice a day from Dar es Salaam and daily from Nairobi . After Bujumbura , Kigali and Entebbe more connections are weekly. The railway line is mainly used to transport goods, but there are also through passenger trains, e.g. B. Via Tabora to Dodoma . The port is the most important on Lake Victoria . There are regional and national ferry connections as well as freight traffic to Uganda , Kenya and the offshore island of Ukerewe .
Mwanza is the seat of the Archdiocese of Mwanza .
education
Nyegezi-Malimbe in Mwanza is the seat of the 1998 Catholic University appointed St. Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT) . The Weil-Bugando University College of Health Sciences (BUCHS), founded in 2003, is based in Mwanza City. The Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences was founded in 1994.
Varia
The award-winning documentary Darwin's Nightmare , released in 2005, deals with the economic and social consequences of the Nile perch economy in Mwanza and the illegal arms shipments from Russia.
Town twinning
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Wurzburg , Germany |
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Tampere , Finland |
In 1966 Mwanza became the twin town of Würzburg . This alliance fell into oblivion in the period that followed, until a voter initiative in 1986 wanted to revive the partnership. Six years later, the town twinning was officially renewed.
traffic
The Mwanza Airport is located about 10 kilometers north-east from the center, right on Lake Victoria . Mwanza is the terminus of a railway line that connects to the Tanganyika Railway in Tabora .
Climate diagram
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Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for Mwanza
Source: Tanzania Meteorological Agency, data: 1971–2000; wetterkontor.de
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Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry “Muansa” in the German Colonial Lexicon from 1920
- ^ German Weather Service: Station list of the overseas stations. As of June 2, 2017, p. 10. (PDF, approx. 170 kB) ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Reinhard Klein-Arendt: "Kamina calls Nauen!" The radio stations in the German colonies 1904-1918 . 3rd edition, Cologne: Wilhelm Herbst Verlag, 1999, pp. 130ff., ISBN 3-923925-58-1 .
- ^ Tanzania: Regions and Cities - Population Statistics in Maps and Tables. Retrieved January 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Tanzania Meteorological Agency: Climate Information Mwanza. World Meteorological Organization, accessed October 27, 2012 .
Web links
- Fort Muansa - general view in the German Colonial Lexicon (approx. 1910)
- Mwanza City Map. Mwanza Guide, 2009 city map
- Sister city Würzburg via Mwanza