Tanzania · Tanga Region
Where to Stay in Tanga, Tanga Region
Tanga is a city of northeast Tanzania on the Swahili coast, an old German-built port near great limestone caves and the Usambara mountains.
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Where to stay in Tanga
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Tanga divides between the old port town and the coast. The streets around the old port keep the harbour, the German buildings, and the market within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the town. The warm sea lies below.
Old dhows ride at anchor. Out toward Amboni and the hills, the town gives way to the sisal estates, the caves and springs, and the road to the Usambara mountains. A room out of town trades the streets for the coral coast, the quiet reefs, and the green hills inland.
The coast runs north to Kenya. Pick a room by the docks for the port, or out along the coast for the reefs. The old port sits on the Swahili coast.
About Tanga
Tanga is the sisal port of the Swahili coast.
What is Tanga known for?
On the Indian Ocean in the northeast of Tanzania, it grew as a German harbour and the heart of the sisal country, and it keeps the great Amboni caves in the hills, the ruined Swahili town of Tongoni down the coast, the old German buildings of the port, and the road up to the Usambara mountains. The warm sea laps the coral coast. Sisal fields spread inland.
What are the main landmarks in Tanga?
The Amboni caves are the pride of the Tanga country. The great limestone caves in the hills near the town, the largest in East Africa, are the emblem of the region, out of downtown. A ruined town lies down the coast.
The old Swahili ruins of Tongoni, with their mosque and tombs, stand south of the town, while the German port, the sisal country, and the Usambara mountains mark the country around Tanga.
What is the history of Tanga?
Tanga is an old town of the Swahili coast. For centuries Swahili traders worked this shore, and the ruined town of Tongoni nearby still holds their old mosque and tombs. The Germans built a modern port.
In colonial days Germany made Tanga the chief harbour of its East African colony and ran a railway inland to the Kilimanjaro country. Sisal made the town rich. On the plantations around Tanga the German settlers grew sisal for rope, and the port shipped it to the world, making Tanga the sisal capital of the coast.
The hills held caves and forests. Inland lay the great Amboni caves and the green Usambara mountains, and Tanga grew as the second port of Tanzania, keeping its harbour, its sisal, and its coast. The dhows still work the coral coast.
Tanga keeps its Swahili port on the Indian Ocean.
Where is Tanga?
Tanga lies in the northeast of Tanzania, on the Indian Ocean near the Kenyan border. The city sits on a bay of the coral coast, backed by sisal country and low hills, with the sea and its reefs to the east and the Usambara mountains rising inland to the west. The warm sea laps the reefs.
Sisal covers the low hills.
What is the climate of Tanga?
Tanga has a hot, humid tropical climate. Warm weather holds all year on the coast, with two monsoon rains and warm sea air the year round. The rains sweep in twice a year.
Warm winds blow off the sea.
How do you get to Tanga?
Tanga lies on the coast of northeast Tanzania, near the Kenyan border. The old railway and the coast road run to it from Dar es Salaam and Moshi, and ships call at its port. Dhows work the coast.
Dar es Salaam lies south down the coast.
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Updated August 2026