Tanzania

Dar es Salaam

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  • Timezone:EAT (UTC+3)
  • IATA:DAR
  • Currency:The Tanzanian shilling is used for everything local; US dollars are accepted for tourism services but not in ordinary shops. ATMs are plentiful in the centre and on the peninsula.
  • Key Areas:City centre — the old port quarter and colonial-era streets · Kariakoo — wholesale and retail trade, dense and loud · Upanga and Oyster Bay — leafier, embassies and restaurants · Msasani — the peninsula, waterfront dining and expat life

Overview

Dar es Salaam is Tanzania's largest city and its commercial centre — a Swahili port where the coast meets the interior, and the least safari-shaped stop on any itinerary through the country.

Culture

Dar eats coastal: rice rather than ugali as the default, coconut in the curries, grilled fish and mishkaki skewers from street grills in the evening, and chipsi mayai everywhere. Because every region is represented here, it is also the easiest place on the mainland to eat food from anywhere in the country, and the Indian influence on the coast means the samosas, biryanis and mixtures are excellent and cheap. Festivals: Ramadan and the evening iftar tables, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, Saba Saba trade fair (July), Union Day, 26 April. Museums: National Museum of Tanzania, Village Museum, Nyumba ya Sanaa craft centre.

Practical Info

Safety: Petty theft is the realistic risk rather than violent crime — keep phones out of sight in crowds and markets, use a car rather than walking after dark, and treat Kariakoo as somewhere to carry nothing. The larger everyday hazard is traffic, and motorbike taxis in particular. Language: Swahili is the language of the city and English is widely used in business, tourism and signage — a visitor manages easily, and a few words of Swahili are appreciated more here than in the safari towns. Currency: The Tanzanian shilling is used for everything local; US dollars are accepted for tourism services but not in ordinary shops. ATMs are plentiful in the centre and on the peninsula.

Travel

Most visitors meet Dar es Salaam as an airport and a ferry terminal, which is a reasonable use of it and misses what it is. The city began as a Swahili coastal settlement and a sultan's harbour, grew through successive trading eras into the country's commercial engine, and now holds several million people drawn from every region of Tanzania — so it is at once the most coastal place on the mainland itinerary and the most national. That combination is its interest. The harbour still works: dhows unload at the fish market, ferries cross to Kigamboni, and the port handles freight for several landlocked countries inland. Kariakoo, the central market district, is one of East Africa's larger trading quarters and is genuinely overwhelming in the best sense. The National Museum holds the fossil material from Olduvai, which connects the city to the northern parks in a way visitors rarely expect, and the Village Museum reconstructs traditional dwellings from across the country in one park. On either side of the harbour there are beaches — north towards Kunduchi, and across the water at Kigamboni — that residents use at weekends. It is hot, humid, congested and not conventionally pretty, and a day or two here is the difference between passing through Tanzania and having been in it.

The city's centre of gravity is still its harbour. The fish market on the northern side of it is the thing to see first and best seen early, when the night's catch comes in and the auction runs — a loud, wet, entirely unstaged operation with tuna, kingfish, octopus and prawns changing hands, and a grill section where you buy fish and have it cooked in front of you. Alongside it, dhows and small boats work the water much as they always have. From the ferry terminal nearby, the crossing to Kigamboni takes a few minutes and costs almost nothing, and it is the best cheap thing to do in the city: the harbour from the water, with the container port on one side and the old town on the other. Kigamboni itself has beaches within easy reach that residents use at weekends, quieter and cleaner than the city's immediate shore. What the fish market is actually serving, and where it sits in the country's two cuisines, is the subject of the Tanzania food guide.

Frequently asked questions

A day or two, yes — and it is the difference between passing through Tanzania and having been in it. The fish market at first light, the few-minute ferry across the harbour, Kariakoo's trading streets and the National Museum's Olduvai material make a full and varied day. It is hot, congested and not conventionally pretty, and it is the most Tanzanian place most visitors will stand in.

Diplomatic missions in Dar es Salaam

2 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.

Visaja keeps this page's contact details and visa guidance under continuous review — still, requirements can change at short notice, so confirm the essentials with the mission or the official government portal before you travel.