Tanzania is an East African country that’s known for its vast wilderness areas. These areas include the plains of Serengeti National Park, which is a safari mecca that’s populated by elephants, lions, leopards, buffalo and rhinos, and Kilimanjaro National Park, which is home to Africa’s highest mountain. Take a look below for 30 more interesting and awesome facts about Tanzania.

1. Tanzania is surrounded by the three great lakes of Africa, which are, Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi.

2. The nation is made up of 130 tribes, each of which is significant in their own way. Each tribe is culturally distinguished by their unique masks, hand woven baskets, batiks, poetry, and items carved out of ebony or rosewood.

3. Zanzibar, a port city of Tanzania, is a cosmopolitan hotspot that dominates East African culture. It has a long history with Arab rulers, Indian workers, Portuguese traders and European colonizers.

4. Dar es Salaam, a city in eastern Tanzania, is the biggest city in the country. It’s also the biggest Swahili speaking city in the world.

5. Being a former European colony, Tanzanians have adopted soccer and rugby as their favorite sports.

6. Over 120 languages are spoken in Tanzania, with most of them being Bantu languages, which is a category of over 535 languages and dialects that are spoken throughout Africa.

7. The world’s earliest human skull was found in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.

8. Tanzania has the biggest concentration of wildlife animals per square kilometer, with more than 4 million wild animals and representatives of 430 species and subspecies.

9. Dugongs lived in Tanzania in sheltered waters 55 million years ago. They grew about 3.5 meters in length and lived to be about 70 years old.

10. Tanzania shares its national anthem with South Africa and Zimbabwe. It’s titled “Mungu Ibariki Africa,” or “God Bless Africa,” and was composed by Enoch Sontonga.

11. Tanzania is known for its humble Ugali dish. The dish is a simple porridge made with either maize, millet or sorghum flour.

12. Mpingo trees, which are found in Tanzania, are the most expensive timber in the world. They’re used to make elegant furniture and fine musical instruments.

13. Mpingo trees are also known as the music trees of Africa because their wood has been used to make traditional musical instruments since ancient times.

14. Freddie Mercury, the frontman vocalist and songwriter of rock band Queen, was born in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

15. Tanzanians love hip hop music and have created Bongo Flava, which is an amalgamation of international styles like reggae, afrobeat, blues, rasta and dancehall with local musical traditions like taarab and dansi.

16. Tanzania is home of the coconut crab, which is the largest crab species in the world. They can be found on Chumbe Island of Zanzibar.

17. The Ruaha National Park is home to the biggest population of wild elephants in all of Eastern Africa.

18. Tanzania is home to the world’s biggest volcanic crater, the Ngorongoro, with a diameter of 19 kilometers and 600 meters of depth.

19. Tanzania has two capital cities, Dar es Salaam, which is the administrative capital, and Dodoma City, which is the legislative capital.

20. The moon can shine so brightly in Tanzania at night that you don’t need a flashlight to see where you’re going.

21. Kinjikitile Ngwale lived in Tanzania during the 1900s and led a revolution against the German colonizers. The uprising was known as the Maji Maji revolution and is one of the most important moments in the nations history.

22. Kinjikitile Ngwale believed that he was possessed by the spirit of a snake and claimed that he was a “maji” that could turn German bullets into powder. He was hanged a month after his proclamation for treason.

23. The flag of Tanzania is made up of a black and yellow band, diagonally cutting out two triangles. The upper portion is green in color with the lower portion is blue in color.

24. The flag represents the four elements of Tanzania’s daily life. The green represents nature’s beauty, the yellow represents the mineral deposits of the country, the black represents the people, while the blue represents the great lakes.

25. Zanzibar has its own flag. The colors of the flag are the same as Tanzania, with the style being a bit different.

26. Before Tanzania merged with Zanzibar in 1964, it was known as Tanganyika.

27. David Livingstone was a Scottish doctor and, on one of his explorations, became the first white man to see Victoria Falls, which he named after Britain’s queen.

28. The Selous Game Reserve is the largest unexploited animal reserve in the world. It has a massive amount of biodiversity and was named after a famous British big game hunter.

29. Lake Victoria is the biggest tropical lake and the second biggest freshwater lake in the world.

30. The country has designated 25% of its land to wildlife sanctuaries and national parks. It’s among the highest in the world, and the total area is greater than the size of Germany.