The 2012 Population and Housing Census (PHC) of Tanzania was preceded by the preparatory geographic work, which involved field visiting of all regions, districts, wards/shehia, villages/mitaa, localities and sub-villages in the country, primarily to create and delineate Enumeration Area boundaries (EAs) so as to produce maps required for census operations. The most important principle followed in delineating an EA was that under no circumstance should an EA overlap the existing administrative boundaries of regions, districts, wards/shehia or villages/mitaa. Adherence to this principle was necessary since the census results were to be presented at the level of these administrative units.

The EA boundaries and important features collected during the field mapping work were annotated on field maps, which were later digitized to facilitate automated production of census maps required for enumeration process. The digital process of census maps subsequently enabled development of a geographical information database, which contains polygons (commonly referred to as shape-files) and related information.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) intends to provide a geo-database with spatial and non-spatial information at five levels of geography, to facilitate presentation of data from censuses and other surveys. These levels are regional (level one), district (level two), ward/shehia (level three), villages/mitaa (level four) and enumeration areas (level five). Levels one and two have been put onto the NBS website in June, 2013 for use by various stakeholders, and the web-page will be updated  to include other levels of shapefiles when they are ready for use. It should be kept in mind that, the shapefiles are intended for statistical uses only.

Layer properties

Data type: Shapefile feature class
Geometry: Polygon
Geographic Coordinate System: GCS Arc 1960
Datum: Arc 1960
Prime Meridian: Greenwich
Angular Unit Degree

 

Click HERE To Download the GIS Shapefiles.