Family research · Phase 12 of the world atlas

Flags of Tanzania

Modern Tanzania is a union of two histories that ran on separate tracks for most of the last two centuries: a mainland taken by Germany in the 1880s and handed to Britain after the First World War as Tanganyika, and an island Sultanate of Zanzibar that traded across the Indian Ocean world for centuries before falling under its own separate British protection in 1890. The two territories won independence within two years of each other and merged into a single country in 1964 — a genuine union, not an annexation, and Zanzibar still keeps its own government and flag within it today.

Tanzania's own flag, adopted at that 1964 union, is built directly from the two predecessor flags — Tanganyika's green and gold, Zanzibar's blue and black — laid across one diagonal band.

Scope of this page: the mainland lineage (German East Africa → British Tanganyika) is treated as the page's main thread, with Zanzibar's own separate protectorate and 1964 revolution folded into the union entry where the two histories meet, since Zanzibar's fuller island history sits outside this mainland-scoped atlas page. Part of a larger atlas — see the linked pages at the bottom.

One mainland, one archipelago, one union

Tanzania's own real border, split into the two territories that governed separately for most of the last three centuries: mainland Tanganyika, and the island Sultanate of Zanzibar (Unguja and Pemba, off the coast) — which keeps a shade of its own even after the 1964 union, reflecting the semi-autonomous status it still holds today. Press play, or drag the slider.

Zanzibar had its own flag while the mainland had none — and it never fully disappeared into the union. The Sultanate of Zanzibar flew a plain red banner from roughly 1700 onward; the mainland interior had no unified flag of its own until German colonization in 1885. The two territories share one flag and one sovereignty from the moment of the April 1964 union — but the map keeps Zanzibar in a shade of its own within that same union palette, because Zanzibar keeps its own president, legislature, and constitution as a semi-autonomous part of the union to this day, a genuinely distinctive federal-style arrangement the mainland's own territory doesn't share.

1964–present

United Republic of Tanzania

Real traced border (1km-resolution coastline) — Zanzibar's own islands (Unguja and Pemba) are shown at true relative scale, so they appear small next to the mainland.

green and blue triangles split by a black diagonal band with gold fimbriation

1964 – present

United Republic of Tanzania

Republic, independentJulius NyerereSecular (no state religion)

Migration & conquest:Emigration: Arab & South Asian Zanzibaris fleeing (1964)Immigration: regional refugees (1960s–)

Who & why: Tanganyika and Zanzibar formally unite on 26 April 1964, three months after the Zanzibar Revolution, forming the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar under President Julius Nyerere; the country is renamed the United Republic of Tanzania later that year, combining the two territories' names. Zanzibar keeps its own president, legislature, and constitution as a semi-autonomous part of the union to this day — a genuinely distinctive federal-style arrangement within a single sovereign state.

What it represents: a black diagonal band with thin gold fimbriation splits the flag into a green triangle (the mainland's agriculture and land) and a blue triangle (Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean); the design deliberately merges Tanganyika's green-gold-black-gold-green flag with Zanzibar's own blue-black-green tricolor into one union banner.

Paint guide

Proportions2:3.

LayoutGreen (upper hoist) and blue (lower fly) triangles, divided by a black diagonal band with gold fimbriation, hoist-bottom to fly-top.

Green#1E7A4A

Blue#00A3DD

Black#050505

Gold fimbriation#F9D616

Tanganyika's green field, black-and-gold central band

1919/1920 – 1964

Tanganyika (League of Nations mandate / UN trust territory, British-administered)

Colonial ruleKing George VAnglican Christianity (established colonial church)

Migration & conquest:Immigration: South Asian traders & laborers

Ruling house:House of WindsorHouse of Busaidi (Al Said)

Who & why: Germany's defeat in the First World War strips it of German East Africa; the mainland portion (excluding Ruanda-Urundi, given to Belgium) is reorganized as Tanganyika, a League of Nations mandate administered by Britain from 1919/1920, continuing as a UN trust territory after 1946. Julius Nyerere's Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) leads a largely peaceful path to self-government, and Tanganyika becomes independent on 9 December 1961, a republic within Nyerere's presidency by December 1962 — two years before the union with Zanzibar. Zanzibar, meanwhile, runs its own separate history over this same span: a British protectorate from 1890, independent as a constitutional sultanate on 10 December 1963, and then upended just weeks later by the violent Zanzibar Revolution of 12 January 1964, which overthrows the Sultan and installs a revolutionary government — the government that then negotiates the April 1964 union with Tanganyika.

What it represents: Tanganyika's own 1961 independence flag — green for the land, black for the people, separated by gold fimbriation for the country's mineral wealth — adopted from TANU's own party colors and carried forward, in modified form, into the 1964 union flag.

Paint guide

Proportions2:3.

LayoutGreen field, central black band with gold fimbriation above and below.

Green#1E7A4A

Black#050505

Gold#F9D616

imperial German colonial ensign, black-white-red canton on a black field (schematic)

1885 – 1919

German East Africa

Colonial ruleCarl PetersNo official state church (Lutheran missions favored)

Ruling house:House of Hohenzollern

Who & why: Carl Peters's German East Africa Company begins signing treaties with local rulers from 1884, and the German Empire formalizes control as the protectorate/colony of German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika) from 1885, encompassing present-day mainland Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi. German rule is met with sustained resistance, most notably the Maji Maji Rebellion of 1905-07, put down with harsh reprisals. Germany's defeat in the First World War ends its East African empire; Britain occupies the mainland by 1916-18, formalized as the Tanganyika mandate from 1919/1920.

What it represents: the imperial German colonial ensign — the German merchant flag's black-white-red in the canton on a plain field — flown over German East Africa's administrative posts through this period.

Paint guide

Proportions2:3, standard German colonial ensign.

LayoutBlack field, canton with black-white-red diagonal stripes (imperial German merchant colors), simplified here.

Black#050505

Red#A4302A

White#F4EFE1

plain red field — the Zanzibar Sultanate's flag, whose trading reach touched the mainland coast

c. 1700 – 1885

Coastal Swahili towns & unaligned mainland interior

Fragmented / pre-state

Migration & conquest:Immigration: Omani Arab settlers (from 1840)Emigration: enslaved people trafficked via the Zanzibar slave trade

Ruling house:House of Busaidi (Al Said)

Who & why: before German colonization, the Tanzanian coast is dotted with Swahili trading towns (Bagamoyo, Kilwa's later medieval legacy, Pangani) increasingly drawn into the commercial orbit of Omani-descended Zanzibar, whose sultans move their own capital to Zanzibar island in 1840. Inland, peoples such as the Nyamwezi, Sukuma, Chagga, and Hehe govern themselves through their own kingdoms and clan structures, with no single authority spanning the mainland before European colonization arrives in the 1880s.

What it represents: the Zanzibar Sultanate's plain red banner is the closest thing to a governing flag with real reach along the coast in this period; no unified flag is documented for the mainland interior, honestly represented here as a single fragmented entry.

Paint guide

ProportionsNo fixed ratio recorded for this period's coastal banner.

LayoutPlain red field (Zanzibar Sultanate); no flag attested for the mainland interior.

Zanzibar red#A4302A

placeholder maroon field — earliest recorded coastal trade era, no flag survives with confidence

before c. 1700

Early Swahili coast & mainland interior peoples

Fragmented / pre-state

Who & why: for centuries before 1700, Swahili trading towns along the Tanzanian coast (linked to the wider medieval Swahili civilization that also built Kilwa, further south) trade across the Indian Ocean, while the interior is home to Bantu-speaking peoples with no shared central authority. This is the deepest, least documented layer of Tanzania's own timeline, included here for completeness rather than as a claim of any single governing flag.

What it represents: no securely documented flag survives from this era for any Tanzanian coastal or interior polity. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.

Paint guide

ProportionsN/A — no attested flag.

Reading the tags

Fragmented / pre-state — no single ruling authority

Colonial rule — protectorate, colony, or mandate/trust territory under a European power

Republic, independent — modern sovereign republic

Find the records

Family history research for Tanzania lives in a different project, Record Atlas, which maps which archive actually holds the paper for a given place and era.

Search Record Atlas for Tanzania →

More of the atlas

This page is one lineage in a larger set. See the region-wide hub and the other countries here:

Flags Atlas indexSearch every country and hub East Africa hubEleven countries, one region