With gridlock traffic jams, clogged roads, lack of open spaces in the city and inaccessible residential or commercial premises, Arusha must be experiencing a population explosion! Well, wrong both the city and region still have relatively very low populations.

Despite the hue and cry about congestion and the lack of space to even place a foot in town, the entire Arusha City's population is still less than 500,000. This is according to official figures released from the Statistics Department at the Regional Commissioner's office .

Results from the 2012 National Population and Housing Census, indicate that the number of people residing within the Arusha-Urban precinct, which is making up the City, currently clocks only 416,442, while the entire region, with a total of seven districts, is just about to reach the 1.7 million figure.

The City, according to the National count, has 216,918 women, making the female and 199,524 males. Now the question is whom exactly is filling up the town precinct?

But it is not just the city which is facing "an acute shortage of people" the entire Arusha Region itself, despite its massive size measuring nearly 34,000 square kilometers, has a population of just 1,694,310. Dar es salaam city with only 1590 sq kilometers has a population of 4, 364, 541 people.

In other words, the entire Arusha-region contributes to just 0.8 percent in the total country's population which clocks at above 45 million. Again there are more women than men, in the region, with the former numbering at 873,028 while the latter making the rear at 821,282.

By comparison, there are more wildebeests (currently around 2 million) in the Serengeti National Park (measuring just 14,000 square kilometers), than there are people (whose population is 1.7 million) in the entire Arusha Region which is more than twice as big, measuring 34,000 square kilometers.

Arusha-rural District, which is in the process of changing its name to Enaboishu is the precinct with second highest population after Arusha-Urban, the area has 323,198 people and again women top the bill at 168,897 with men slightly below at 154,301.

Meru District has a population of 268,144 and the ratio between males and females nearly equal but women are still more, numbering at 136,880 while there are 131,264 men.

Both Arusha-Rural (Enaboishu) and Meru, used to form the vast Arumeru District before they were split into two in 2007, otherwise the entire vicinity would have been the most populous, pooling in 591,342 people. The two still share a single District Commissioner.

Karatu District has a population of 230,166 and is the only area where there are more men and women, the male population being 177,769 while their female number 112,397.

Adjoining it is the Ngorongoro District which has a population of 174,278 among them 91,668 women and 82,610 men. Much of this District however comprises Wildlife Conservation and Game Controlled Areas, limiting the area where human beings are allowed to live.

Monduli District now has a population of 158,929 and out of these there are 83,314 women and 75,615 men. Longido on the other hand happens to be the district which was carved out of Monduli and this has been left with a population of 123,153 the lowest in the entire region.

There are also more women than men Longido as well by just a margin of 2700. Official figures indicate that, the District has 62,954 women and 60,199 men.

Ngorongoro, Monduli and Longido Districts are areas resided by mostly Maasai communities whose mode of life include moving from one area to another in search of greener pastures and water for their abundant livestocks.

Arusha is one of Tanzania's 30 administrative regions and is divided into seven districts.

The region also borders the Kilimanjaro Region to the east, the Manyara and Singida regions to the south, and the Mara and Simiyu regions to the west. Major towns include Monduli, Namanga, Longido and Loliondo to the north, Mto wa Mbu and Karatu to the west, and Usa River to the east.

The size of Arusha region, according to available statistics is comparable in size to the combined surface and marine area of Maryland, which is one of the 55 states in the United States of America.

1.

Dar es Salaam

769,445

1,205,443

2,497,940

4,364,541[N 1]

Dar es Salaam

2.

Mwanza

110,553

172,287

476,646

706,543[N 2]

Mwanza

3.

Arusha

55,223

102,544

282,712

416,442[N 3]

Arusha

4.

Dodoma

45,807

83,205

324,347

410,956[N 4]

Dodoma

5.

Mbeya

76,601

130,798

266,422

385,279[N 5]

Mbeya

6.

Morogoro

60,782

117,760

228,863

315,866[N 6]

Morogoro

7.

Tanga

103,399

137,364

243,580

273,332[N 7]

Tanga

8.

Kahama

242,208[N 8]

Shinyanga

9.

Tabora

67,388

92,779

135,243

226,999[N 9]

Tabora

10.

Zanzibar City

110,531

157,634

206,292

223,033[N 10]

Zanzibar West