The building is the exhibit
The natural history museum in Arusha occupies the German boma built at the foot of Mount Meru at the turn of the twentieth century. Arusha City Council’s own history is direct about the sequence: Captain Johannes built a fort there in the nineteenth century to serve the German colonisation of what became Tanganyika, the town grew outward from it as a trading post, and the little fort still stands and has been converted into a museum of natural history.
That makes the site the oldest thing in Arusha and the reason the city is where it is. It sits behind the regional commissioner’s office, within walking distance of the centre.
What the museum is
The National Museum of Tanzania, which runs it, gives the museum’s establishment as 1987, inside the historic German boma building of the 1900s. Its stated work is to collect, conserve and educate the public about Tanzania’s natural heritage, through displays on living things and on ancient life, and the grounds are laid out as gardens of trees and flowers rather than as a car park.
The national body describes the centre’s purpose as a place for the scientific study of animals and plants. Set against a country whose wildlife is normally met at forty kilometres an hour from a vehicle, an hour spent with the specimens and the palaeontological material is a genuinely different way in, and it is a good use of a first afternoon while you are still adjusting to the altitude.
One museum, two names
The National Museum of Tanzania lists it as the National Natural History Museum. Arusha City Council calls it the Arusha Natural History Museum. Guides and itineraries use both, along with “the old German boma”. They are one place. There is no second natural history collection in the city.
Worth separating as well: the boma in Arusha is not the German boma at Tanga or the one at Bagamoyo. Several Tanzanian towns have a building of that name, and they are unconnected.
Visiting
The museum sits inside an easy walk of the clock tower and the central market, which is the natural shape of a day on foot in Arusha. The museum tours guide and the historical walking tours guide cover both halves of that.
Common questions
How old is the building?
It is the German fort built at the foot of Mount Meru at the turn of the twentieth century, which Arusha City Council describes as still standing and converted into the natural history museum. The National Museum of Tanzania dates the museum itself to 1987.
Is it the same as the Arusha Declaration Museum?
No. Both are centres of the National Museum of Tanzania in Arusha, but they are different buildings with different subjects, about fifteen minutes apart on foot.