Population of Tanzania 1800-2020

In 1800, the population of the region now known as Tanzania was just over three million people. Throughout the 19^th century, both as a collection of small kingdoms and later as a German colony (1897), Tanzania would see modest growth in its population, growing from three million at the start of the century to approximately four million by 1900. Following the handover of the region (then known as German East Africa) to the United Kingdom in 1919, the region would begin to see first a noticeable, and later an exponential increase in its population, rising to just under 8 million by 1950, and 33.5 million by the century’s end. This growth would slow somewhat beginning in the late 1980s to 1990s, in part the result of a rapid spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic throughout the country. By 2020, Tanzania will have a population just under 60 million.