In many ways Tanzanian history is the history of humankind.
Fossils found at Olduvai Gorge, one of the world's premier
archaeological sites, suggest that Tanzania has been settled by
hominids for over two million years. Iron Age migrations from
West Africa were followed by European and Arabian merchants,
missionaries and slavers, and by the mid-1800s Zanzibar had
become the centre of the East African slave trade. Colonised
first by the Germans and then the British, independence came
peacefully to mainland Tanganyika in 1961; the addition of
Zanzibar in 1964 created the modern state of Tanzania. Rich in
mineral wealth and natural gas, Tanzania's economy is
nevertheless dominated by agriculture which employs 75% of the
workforce and produces half the country's GDP. Tanzania's main
exports include gold, coffee, tea and cotton but it is tourism,
increasing in importance year after year, which is the country's
biggest foreign exchange earner. Tanzania's 46 million
inhabitants are overwhelmingly young and non-urban