Seven places in Tanzania are on UNESCO's World Heritage List: the migration plains, Africa's highest mountain, a caldera holding four million years of human history, two medieval port cities, a Swahili old town and rock paintings still used in ritual today.
Ngorongoro Crater, inscribed in 1979, and Tanzania's first World Heritage Site.
7
Sites inscribed
Since 1979, most recently 2006
3
Natural
Serengeti, Selous, Kilimanjaro
3
Cultural
Kilwa, Stone Town, Kondoa
1
Mixed
Ngorongoro, for nature and culture
A World Heritage Site is a place UNESCO's World Heritage Committee judges to be of outstanding universal value: important to humanity as a whole, not only to the country it is in. Each site is listed under one or more of ten criteria, six cultural and four natural, and the country agrees to protect it.
Each site below links to our full page on it, where you will find the UNESCO detail alongside the practical guide.
Arusha Region · 8,094 km²
Listed first for nature: the crater, the year-round density of wildlife, black rhino, and the migration crossing its northern plains. In 2010 it was also recognised for culture, for the evidence of human evolution found at Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli. It is one of the few places on the list recognised for both.
Lindi Region
The remains of two Swahili port cities on neighbouring islands, which controlled much of the Indian Ocean trade from about the 13th to the 16th century. They show how Swahili culture, Islam and long-distance trade spread along the East African coast.
Mara, Simiyu and Arusha regions · 14,763 km²
For the largest unaltered animal migration left in the world, set on the 'endless plains', and for holding one of the greatest concentrations of large predators and grazing animals on earth.
Pwani, Morogoro, Lindi, Mtwara and Ruvuma regions · 51,200 km²
One of the largest remaining wilderness areas in Africa, and a globally important example of miombo woodland. UNESCO lists it for the scale of its wildlife and the unusual range of its habitats.
Kilimanjaro Region · 756 km²
For the mountain itself: the highest in Africa and the largest free-standing volcanic mass in the world, snow-capped and standing alone above the plains.
Zanzibar · 96 hectares
An outstanding example of a Swahili trading town, its streets and buildings almost intact, mixing African, Arab, Indian and European traditions built up over more than a thousand years. It is also listed for its place in the ending of the slave trade.
Dodoma Region · 2,336 km²
Painted rock shelters made over at least two thousand years by hunter-gatherer and later farming and herding peoples. Some are still used by local communities for rainmaking, divining and healing, which ties the paintings to living tradition.
UNESCO moves a site to its danger list when the qualities it was listed for are under serious threat. Three Tanzanian sites have been on it; two have since been taken off.
1984–1989
Listed for poaching and encroachment by farming; removed in 1989.
2004–2014
Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara
Listed for decay, with parts of the ruins collapsing; removed in 2014.
2014–now
Listed for poaching, which cut elephant and rhino numbers by almost 90% since 1982. It remains on the danger list.
A country's Tentative List names the places it may nominate in future. Being on it is not World Heritage status, and some entries wait decades.
1997
A hill in Hai District, near Kilimanjaro International Airport, where Maasai age sets receive their name and pass into elderhood.
1997
The forest above Lake Tanganyika where Jane Goodall's chimpanzee research began in 1960.
1997
Zanzibar's last large indigenous forest and its mangroves, home of the Zanzibar red colobus.
2006
The ancient forested ranges from the Usambara to the Udzungwa, with plants and animals found nowhere else.
2006
The caravan road of about 1,200 km from Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika to Bagamoyo on the coast.
2022
The Late Jurassic dinosaur beds near Lindi, excavated by a German expedition from 1909 to 1913.
2024
A joint nomination with Kenya and Uganda for the geometric rock paintings around Lake Victoria.
Last reviewed 2026-09-19
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