# Iringa > A cool highland town on an escarpment above the Ruaha valley, with a Stone Age site older than almost anything in Europe and the memory of the chief who beat a German column in the field. Canonical: https://seeyoutanzania.com/guides/iringa Last updated: 2026-09-14 Edited by: Kabeer Dalvi (https://seeyoutanzania.com/about) ## At a glance - **Region:** Iringa Region, southern highlands - **Population:** 202,490 (2022 census) - **Elevation:** Over 1,550 m - **From Dar es Salaam:** 502 km on the Tanzam highway - **Gateway to:** Ruaha National Park ## Map of Iringa Region **Districts and councils:** Iringa Municipal · Iringa Rural · Kilolo · Mafinga Town · Mufindi Councils as counted in the 2022 census (National Bureau of Statistics). ## Mkwawa, and a skull that took fifty-six years to come home Start much earlier than the colonial period. At **Isimila**, about twenty kilometres south-west of the town, a dry gully has cut down through sediments and exposed a **Stone Age site** where hand axes and cleavers were excavated in quantity, dated to roughly **70,000 years** ago. The gully has also eroded into a forest of sandstone pillars, which is why people photograph it. The tools are why it matters. The history the town is built on, though, is the **Hehe** and their chief **Mkwawa**. In 1891 a German column under Emil von Zelewski marched into Hehe country expecting the usual outcome. At **Lugalo**, the Hehe ambushed it and destroyed it, killing von Zelewski and most of his force — one of the most complete defeats inflicted on a European army in the colonial conquest of the continent. The Germans spent seven years answering it. They stormed Mkwawa's fortress at **Kalenga**, and built a garrison town — *Neu Iringa* — to hold the district. Mkwawa took to the bush and fought a guerrilla campaign until **1898**, when, cornered, he shot himself rather than be captured. German soldiers cut off his head and sent the skull to Germany. What happened next is remarkable. The return of the skull was written into the **Treaty of Versailles** in 1919 — **Article 246**, an article of a world peace treaty devoted to the head of a Tanzanian chief. It still took decades. Governor **Sir Edward Twining** traced it to a museum in Bremen, and on **19 June 1954** presented it to Mkwawa's grandson, Chief Adam Sapi, at Kalenga, in front of a large Hehe crowd. It is still there, in the **Mkwawa Memorial Museum**. ## High-altitude farming, and the road south The southern highlands are the country's **breadbasket**, and Iringa sits in the middle of it. Altitude and reliable rain make this maize country on a scale the drier north cannot match, along with tomatoes, potatoes and vegetables that travel to Dar es Salaam and beyond. Pine and eucalyptus plantations cover the higher ground, feeding a timber industry. The other economy is the road. The **Tanzam highway** — the Dar es Salaam to Zambia trunk route, part of the Cairo–Cape Town corridor — runs through Iringa, and the town serves the freight moving between the port and the landlocked south. That gives it a transport-and-services economy quite separate from agriculture, and explains why it has more infrastructure than its population suggests. For visitors, Iringa's commercial significance is as the staging point for **Ruaha National Park**, roughly two hours west on a rough road — the second largest park in the country and one of its emptiest. Iringa is where you provision, sleep and change money before going in. **What the region produces** - **Maize:** The southern highlands are the national breadbasket - **Tomatoes & potatoes:** Sold as far as Dar es Salaam - **Timber:** Pine and eucalyptus plantations at altitude - **Tobacco & tea:** In the wetter districts - **Transit trade:** The Tanzam highway to Zambia ## Hehe country, and a town that feels European in the evening The **Hehe** identity here is strong and explicitly historical — Mkwawa is not a museum figure but a living reference point, and the chieftaincy retained real standing well into the independence period. Chief **Adam Sapi Mkwawa**, who received his grandfather's skull in 1954, went on to be the first Speaker of Tanzania's National Assembly. The town itself sits on a rocky spur with a colonial-era grid below it, and it is walkable, cool and unusually pleasant. The German and Asian commercial buildings along the main streets are largely intact, and the market is one of the better ones in the country for produce, given what grows here. There is a long-standing Greek and Indian trading presence in the older streets. The climate is the thing visitors remark on. Above 1,550 metres, Iringa is cold at night for much of the year, and the surrounding country — rocky outcrops, miombo woodland, pine plantations — looks nothing like the savanna people arrive expecting. **Kalenga**, ten kilometres out, holds the museum and Mkwawa's grave, and the walk around the old fortress site is the most historically dense hour in the southern highlands. ## Towns, parks and places across Iringa Region ### Mufindi and Mafinga (Highlands) One of the coolest, wettest districts in the country, known for its tea estates and timber. Mafinga is the district town on the highway south. ### Mtera reservoir (Lake) The dammed Great Ruaha on the Dodoma border — up to 660 km² when full — opened in 1981 to regulate water for hydropower downstream. ### Ruaha National Park (National park) One of Tanzania's largest parks, west of Iringa town. [Park page](https://seeyoutanzania.com/parks/ruaha) ## What to see ### Isimila Stone Age site *Archaeology.* Hand axes some 70,000 years old, in a gully eroded into sandstone pillars. Twenty kilometres out, and barely visited. ### Mkwawa Memorial Museum, Kalenga *Museum.* The chief's skull, returned in 1954 under Article 246 of the Treaty of Versailles, and his grave. ### Ruaha National Park *National park.* Two hours west. The country's second largest park, and one of the best in East Africa for predators. ### Kalenga fortress site *Heritage.* What remains of the stronghold the Germans stormed in 1894, above the Little Ruaha river. ### Iringa market *Market.* Highland produce — an unusual range for Tanzania because of what the altitude supports. ### Udzungwa Mountains *National park.* East towards Mikumi — rainforest, waterfalls and primates found nowhere else. ## Before you go - **Getting there:** 502 km from Dar es Salaam on the surfaced Tanzam highway — seven to eight hours by road, or a short flight to the regional airstrip. - **Getting around:** The town is walkable. Kalenga and Isimila need a vehicle or a bajaji and some negotiation. - **When to come:** May to October is dry and cool. The rains run December to April and the Ruaha road becomes difficult. - **Altitude:** Over 1,550 m. Cold at night year-round — bring a jacket and expect to use it. - **For Ruaha:** Iringa is the last place to provision, fuel and draw cash before the park. Do all three. - **Money:** Shillings. ATMs in the town centre; nothing reliable beyond it. ## Checked against - [Iringa — population, elevation, Isimila and Neu Iringa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iringa), Wikipedia - [Chief Mkwawa — Lugalo, 1898, and the return of the skull](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Mkwawa), Wikipedia - [The skull of Mkwawa and the politics of indirect rule in Tanganyika](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17531055.2016.1184835), Journal of Eastern African Studies - [Ruaha National Park](https://www.tanzaniaparks.go.tz/nationalparks/ruaha), Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) - [Mtera Dam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mtera_Dam), Wikipedia - [Mufindi District — tea and timber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mufindi_District), Wikipedia