1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Tanzania
Compare this sourced profile of Arusha, Tanzania before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Arusha—617,631, Africa/Dar_es_Salaam, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: city in Arusha Region, Tanzania.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Arusha is GeoNames ID 161325. Its recorded administrative path is Arusha City → Arusha → Tanzania, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Arusha occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-04-14; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Arusha ranks 905 by recorded population. Inside the 6 selected Tanzania entries it ranks 5; inside the 243 entries in its broad region it ranks 186. Its 617,631 population value is 0.84 times the 737,494 median for the country cohort and 0.68 times the 902,588 regional median. Arusha is rank 5 among the 6 selected Tanzania entries, so a percentage band would overstate this small cohort. Arusha's recorded value stays within one quarter of the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Arusha's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Nairobi at 232.13 km with 4,397,073 recorded people; Ruiru at 248.773 km with 490,120 recorded people; Dodoma at 329.024 km with 765,179 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 96.894 km. Compared with Nairobi, Arusha's recorded population is 0.14 times as large. Against Arusha, Nairobi follows Nairobi County → Kenya in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Kenya cohort rather than Tanzania, uses Africa/Nairobi instead of Africa/Dar_es_Salaam, and carries capital of a political entity rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is above Arusha's. Against Arusha, Ruiru follows Kiambu County → Kenya in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Kenya cohort rather than Tanzania, uses Africa/Nairobi instead of Africa/Dar_es_Salaam, and carries populated place rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Arusha's. Against Arusha, Dodoma follows Dodoma Urban District → Dodoma → Tanzania in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected Tanzania cohort, uses the shared Africa/Dar_es_Salaam identifier, and carries capital of a political entity rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is above Arusha's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 1,041 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Arusha's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 161325, the coordinate pair 3.3667 / 36.6833, country rank 5 of 6, and neighbor GeoNames 184745 at 232.13 km bind Arusha to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Arusha's reference point is 3.3667° south and 36.6833° east. The IANA identifier Africa/Dar_es_Salaam is shared by 6 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Arusha's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Arusha's point falls in the near-equatorial coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Arusha's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Arusha, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Arusha's closest other entries in this atlas are Nairobi (232.13 km), Ruiru (248.773 km), Dodoma (329.024 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Arusha, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-04-14; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.