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Dodoma ( in Gogo language), officially Dodoma City ( Jiji Kuu la Dodoma, in Swahili language), is the capital city of Tanzania. With a population of 765,179,
Much of Dodoma's initial design did not come to fruition until the 21st century. In May 2023, the national government under President Samia Suluhu unveiled the new State House in Dodoma in a historic event stamping the relocation of government duties to the city. As a result, Dar es Salaam has remained the commercial and maritime capital of Tanzania, while Dodoma has retained the state house Ikulu and a large number of government functions.
In 1967, following independence, the government invited Canadian firm Project Planning Associates Ltd to draw up a master plan to help control and organise the then capital of the country, Dar es Salaam, which was undergoing rapid urbanisation and population growth. The plan was cancelled in 1972, in part due to its failure to adequately address the historical and social problems associated with the city.
In 1974, after a nationwide party referendum, the Tanzanian government announced that the capital would be moved from Dar es Salaam to a more central location to create significant social and economic improvements for the central region and to centralise the capital within the country.Britannica, Dodoma, britannica.com, USA, accessed on June 24, 2019 The cost was estimated at £186 million and envisaged to take 10 years. The site, the Dodoma region, had been looked at as a potential new capital as early as 1915 by the then colonial power Germany, in 1932 by the British as a League of Nations mandate and again in the post-independence National Assembly in 1961 and 1966.
With an already-established town at a major crossroads, the Dodoma region had an agreeable climate, room for development and was located in the geographic centre of the nation. Its location in a rural environment was seen as the ujamaa heartland and therefore appropriate for a ujamaa capital that could see and learn from neighbouring villages and maintain a close relationship to the land.
A new capital was seen as a more economically viable alternative than attempting to reorganise and restructure Dar es Salaam and was idealised as a way of diverting development away from continued concentration in a single coastal city that was seen as anathema to the government's goal of socialist unity and development. Objectives for the new capital included: that the city become a symbol of Tanzania's social and cultural values and aspirations; that the capital city function be supplemented by industrial-commercial development; and that the mistakes and features of colonial planning and modern big cities, such as excessive population densities, pollution and traffic congestion, be avoided.
The Capital Development Authority (CDA) invited three international firms to submit proposals for the best location and preparation of a master plan: Project Planning Associates Ltd., of Canada; Doxiadis Associates International, of Greece (who had worked on Pakistan's new capital of Islamabad); and Engineering Consulting Firms Association, of Japan. A fourth firm from Germany submitted a proposal without invitation.
The winner, decided by the CDA together with independent American consultants, was Project Planning Associates, the same Canadian consultants whose plan for Dar es Salaam was seen as inadequate and not responsive enough to the local conditions and needs for Tanzania's largest city. Their plan envisaged a city of 400,000 persons by 2000 and 1.3 million by 2020.
The official capital since 1996, Dodoma was envisaged as the first non-monumental capital city as opposed to the monumentality and hierarchy of other planned capital cities such as Abuja, Yamoussoukro, Brasília and Washington, D.C. It rejected geometrical forms such as Grid plan and radial plans as inappropriate as the urban form was intended to undulate and curve with the existing topography and not in conflict with it so as to retain its rural ujamaa feel. As befitted Tanzania's development at the time, the car was seen as secondary in importance to public transports such as buses which were then utilised by much of the population.
In 1974, Dodoma had a population of 40,000 and was chosen as the site of the new capital as opposed to nearby Hombolo or Ihumwa. The existing population size was not seen as an impediment while existing infrastructure would reduce construction costs.
The city, designed over , was meant to be "the chief village in a nation of villages", built at a human scale meant to be experienced on foot. Its basic principles follow the garden city model of a town set amongst a garden with green belts separating segregated zones for residents and industry.
As part of the move of the government, a capitol complex was envisaged and designs by international teams offered competing visions and versions of the siting and layout of a capitol complex. These competing proposals, some paid for by foreign governments as a form of aid and others by the firms involved, were presented as early as 1978.
As much of the initial design never came to fruition over the past 40 years, government offices and embassies have resisted moving offices to Dodoma. As a result, many government offices remain in Dar es Salaam, which remains the commercial and the de facto capital of Tanzania.
Dodoma was envisaged as a nation-building project to cement a newly post-colonial independence identity and direction in Tanzania, and is similar to projects in Nigeria (Abuja), Côte d'Ivoire (Yamoussoukro), Botswana (Gaborone), Malawi (Lilongwe) and Mauritania (Nouakchott).
The population count as of 2022 was recorded as 3,085,625 in Dodoma region of 41,311 km2, while Dodoma city increased from 410,956 in 2012 to 765,179 in 2022, covering 2,607 km2, or annual rate of 6.4% in ten years.
The Anglican Church runs the only international school in Dodoma, Canon Andrea Mwaka School ("CAMS"). CAMS, established in 1950, provides education to children from Nursery to Form 4. The education is based on the English National curriculum and the school offers students the opportunity to take IGCSE examinations. An estimated 280 students are taught at the school.
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