Multicultural aspects of colonial street names in the city of Dar es Salaam

Abstract

When used in a purely descriptive sense, the term multicultural means the simultaneous presence of people with different cultural backgrounds. If one takes this perspective, the city of Dar es Salaam is multicultural from its very beginnings. Geographically lying on the African continent, the city was founded by an Omani Sultan and, until Independence in 1961, was the capital of German East-Africa and subsequently administered by the UK. This eventful history is reflected in the different layers of names assigned to the streets in the historical city centre. The following article analyses the German colonial names focusing on the multicultural aspects they inscribe into the cityscape.