Tanzania Emoji

🇹🇿 the Tanzania flag emoji shows a green triangle in the upper left and a blue one in the lower right, divided by a broad black band edged in yellow that runs diagonally from corner to corner. The 🇹🇿 sequence is two regional indicator letters, 🇹 and 🇿, for the region code TZ; subdivision flags such as England, Scotland and Wales use tag sequences instead. Windows' emoji font shows TZ instead of a flag; other systems and apps display the flag only if they support the sequence, and unsupported ones may show TZ or a missing glyph.

The flag dates from 1964, when Tanganyika and Zanzibar united as one country: it joins the green, black and yellow of Tanganyika's flag with the blue of Zanzibar's. The usual reading of the Tanzania flag colours: green for the land and its rich vegetation, yellow for the mineral wealth under it, black for the people, and blue for the lakes, the rivers and the Indian Ocean. Where the flag doesn't fit, people write the colours as hearts, 💚💛🖤💙, in bios, usernames and every Uhuru Day post.

The coat of arms puts a warrior's shield 🛡️ between a man and a woman standing on Mount Kilimanjaro, with elephant tusks, a clove bush and a cotton bush. On top of the shield burns the Uhuru Torch 🔥 (Mwenge wa Uhuru), and in front of it cross a spear, an axe 🪓 and a hoe; the motto underneath is Uhuru na Umoja, "Freedom and Unity". The real torch was lit on the summit of Kilimanjaro on the night of independence in 1961, and every year a torch is still run through the regions of the country in the Uhuru Torch Race. The giraffe 🦒 is Tanzania's national animal, and the national anthem, Mungu Ibariki Afrika ("God Bless Africa"), is sung in Swahili to the same tune as South Africa's Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika. 🤝 stands for the Union itself, and 🧑‍🏫 fits Mwalimu, "the teacher", the name by which Julius Nyerere, the first president, is still remembered.

Tanzania currency symbol: TSh, TZS and /=

The Tanzanian shilling (ISO code TZS) is divided into 100 cents in theory, though cents have long dropped out of use, and it has no special Unicode sign. Tanzanians write it with letters before the amount, TSh 5,000 or Tsh 5,000, banks write TZS 5,000, and on receipts and price boards you will often see the East African shorthand 5,000/=, where the slash and equals sign mean "shillings, no cents". So the "Tanzania shilling symbol" you can copy is TSh or /=; in chats people add 🪙, 💵 or 💰.

Much of the money in Tanzania moves by phone. Vodacom launched M-Pesa there in 2008, and mobile money from several networks now pays for a bajaji ride, a bag of rice at the duka or a contribution to a wedding committee. 📱💸 is the emoji for "I've sent it", and 📲 the hopeful "send it to me".

Tanzanian letters: Swahili ng’ and the Maa alphabet

Swahili, Kiswahili, is Tanzania's national language and, with English, its official one: Julius Nyerere made it the language of government and of primary school, and it is what the whole country, from Dodoma to Zanzibar, has in common. By CLDR estimates about 61 million of Tanzania's roughly 67 million people speak it. English is used in the higher courts, in secondary schools and universities and in business, and well over a hundred other languages are spoken at home, Sukuma (about 6 million speakers by CLDR estimates), Nyamwezi, Makonde, Shambala, Bena, Maasai, Asu, Langi and Vunjo (Chaga) among them. Swahili, English, Maasai and Sukuma each have their own collection.

Swahili needs no accented letters at all: it is written in plain Latin letters, without q or x, and c appears only in ch. Its one extra mark is the apostrophe of ng’. Ng’ombe (cow) begins with the sound of "ng" in singer, while ngoma (drum, dance) has the "ng" of finger, and the apostrophe is what tells them apart. Both the curly ’ and the straight ' are used; for the curly one press Alt+0146 on Windows or Option+Shift+] on a Mac.

The Maasai of northern Tanzania speak Maa, about a million of them in Tanzania by CLDR estimates, and the dictionaries and the CLDR alphabet write it with four extra vowels and the letter eng: ɛ and ɔ, the open e of "bed" and the open o of "law" beside the closed e and o, ɨ and ʉ, the looser, more open partners of i and u, and ŋ, the "ng" of singer as one letter. Everyday Maasai writing often makes do with plain letters, such as ng for ŋ. The usual keyboards have no keys for them, so copy them from this page, or in Word type the code and press Alt+X: 025B (ɛ), 0268 (ɨ), 014B (ŋ), 0254 (ɔ), 0289 (ʉ), and for capitals 0190 (Ɛ), 0197 (Ɨ), 014A (Ŋ), 0186 (Ɔ), 0244 (Ʉ). In HTML they are ɛ, ɨ, ŋ, ɔ and ʉ.

Tanzania safari emoji: Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Kilimanjaro

The Big Five are lion 🦁, elephant 🐘, African buffalo, leopard 🐆 and rhino 🦏; 🐃 is a water-buffalo emoji used as a stand-in for the African buffalo in safari combos. The Serengeti is home to the Great Migration, well over a million wildebeest moving with zebras 🦓 in a yearly circle between Tanzania and Kenya's Maasai Mara; there is no wildebeest emoji, so people use 🐃. The calves are born on the southern plains early in the year, and the river crossings, with crocodiles 🐊 and hippos 🦛 waiting, are the best-known moment of the season. A dawn balloon flight 🎈🌅 over the plains is the classic splurge.

The Ngorongoro Crater 🌋 is the collapsed caldera of an old volcano, a walled world of grassland where black rhinos are easier to see than almost anywhere; nearby Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Maasai "Mountain of God", is still an active volcano, and Lake Natron below it is the main breeding ground of East Africa's lesser flamingos 🦩. Tarangire is known for its elephants and baobabs, Lake Manyara for lions that rest in trees, and Gombe Stream on Lake Tanganyika for the chimpanzees 🐒 Jane Goodall began to study in 1960. At Olduvai Gorge the Leakeys dug up some of the oldest human ancestors 🦴, and at Laetoli a trail of footprints 👣 about 3.6 million years old is preserved in volcanic ash.

Kilimanjaro 🏔️, 5,895 m, is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest mountain in the world that stands alone, not part of a range. Its summit is Uhuru Peak, and climbers with their boots 🥾 hear one Swahili phrase from their guides all the way up: pole pole, "slowly, slowly". 🏔️🌄 is the summit sunrise everyone posts after the night climb.

Zanzibar emoji: Stone Town, spices and the Indian Ocean

Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania: the islands of Unguja, the one most people simply call Zanzibar, and Pemba, with its own president and parliament. Stone Town, its old capital and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is famous for its carved wooden doors 🚪, many of them studded with brass, and the Old Fort 🏰 on the waterfront; at dusk the dhows ⛵ sail out past Forodhani Gardens, where the night food market sets up. The islands built their wealth on spices: cloves above all, grown especially on Pemba, with nutmeg, cinnamon and black pepper, which is why 🌿🌶️ and spice-farm tours go with every Zanzibar trip.

Tanzania's coast is posted as 🏝️🌴🌊: Zanzibar's white beaches at Nungwi and Paje, diving and snorkelling 🤿🐠 around Mnemba Atoll, dolphins 🐬 off Kizimkazi, sea turtles 🐢, and whale sharks 🦈 off Mafia Island, which is separate from Zanzibar and lies off mainland Tanzania; the Jozani forest is home to the Zanzibar red colobus 🐒, a monkey found nowhere else. People often look for a Zanzibar flag emoji, but there isn't one: the islands' flag of 2005 (blue, black and green stripes with the Tanzanian flag in the corner) has no emoji, so 🇹🇿 with 🏝️ or ⛵ does the job. Zanzibar's own music is taarab 🎻, sung poetry with violins, qanun and oud, and Freddie Mercury of Queen was born in Stone Town in 1946.

Tanzanian food, football, music and holidays

Ugali, a stiff maize porridge 🌽, is eaten every day with maharage (beans 🫘), mchicha (greens 🥬), samaki (fish 🐟) or meat. Wali (rice 🍚) and spiced pilau 🍛 come out for weddings and Eid, nyama choma and mishkaki skewers 🍖🔥 are grilled at every bar, and the street food Tanzania claims as its own is chipsi mayai 🍟🥚, chips cooked into an omelette, with kachumbari 🍅🧅 and pilipili 🌶️ on the side. Breakfast is chai 🍵 with maandazi 🍩 or chapati 🫓; around Kilimanjaro and in Kagera green bananas are a staple, cooked into dishes like mtori soup 🍌🍲, and the slopes of the mountain grow Kilimanjaro coffee ☕. A cold Kilimanjaro, Safari or Serengeti lager 🍺 ends the day.

Football ⚽ is the national obsession, and above all the derby between Simba SC 🦁❤️🤍, in red and white, and Young Africans, Yanga, in green and yellow 💚💛, both clubs from Dar es Salaam's Kariakoo district; the national team is the Taifa Stars. In 1974 Filbert Bayi 🏃 set a world record over 1500 m. The sound of the country is Bongo Flava 🎤🎶, Tanzanian hip hop and R&B in Swahili, with the fast singeli of Dar es Salaam's streets 💃🕺 and the drums of ngoma 🥁🪘. Tingatinga paintings 🎨 of bright animals, kanga and kitenge cloth 🧵👗 printed with Swahili sayings, and tanzanite 💎, a blue-violet gem mined only in the Merelani Hills near Arusha, are what visitors carry home.

Tanzania's holidays: Zanzibar Revolution Day on 12 January, Union Day on 26 April for the union of 1964 🤝, Saba Saba on 7 July, Nane Nane, the farmers' day 🧑‍🌾🌾🚜, on 8 August, Nyerere Day on 14 October and Uhuru Day, independence day, on 9 December 🇹🇿🎉🎆, for Tanganyika's independence in 1961. Muslims and Christians each make up a large share of the country, and Eid 🕌🌙 and Christmas ⛪🎄 are both public holidays. Tanzania's neighbours Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique each have their own collection.