wanza is a mid-sized port city on the southern shores of Lake Victoria in northwestern Tanzania. With a population of over 700,000, it is Tanzania's second largest city, following Dar es Salaam. Mwanza is the capital of the surrounding Mwanza Region. Before the colonial era Mwanza Region was under the Sukuma, Kerewe, Kara and Zinza empires. When the Germans colonized Tanganyika, Mwanza became one of the districts in their territory. After the First World War, East Africa came under the supervision of a British mandate. The British established provincial leadership in Tanganyika and the Mwanza Region became one of the districts of the Lake Province while Biharamulo, Bukoba, Maswa, Shinyanga, Musoma and Kwimba were the other districts of the province. Later on the Lake Province was divided into the Lake Province and the Western Zone. After independence, all the provinces were turned into official regions. Mwanza Region remained a part of the Lake Region until 1963 when it was officially given the status of a region. The Sukuma constitute over 90 percent of the population of the Mwanza Region. Other ethnic groups in the region, in much smaller proportions, include the Zinza, Haya, Sumbwa, Nyamwezi, Luo, Kurya, Jita, and Kerewe. They live mainly in the Mwanza city area. National policy, however, gives very little importance to ethnic groupings and reliable data is difficult to find. The people of Mwanza have different faiths ranging from traditional practices to modern religions including Hinduism, Islam, Swaminarayan, and Christian churches such as the Anglican, Roman Catholic, African Inland, Lutheran, Tanzania Mennonite, Mwanza Christian Miracle, Assemblies of God, Pentecostal Evangelical, and the Seventh Day Adventist churches. In 2011 the city council announced plans to create a major commercial development in the Ilema District. Commerce is flourishing economic activity with employment of over 7700 people. Mwanza residents who are engaged in various retail and wholesale trade within the formal and informal sector. The sector is becoming popular to most of the residents;almost everybody has some sort of a small retail shop. There are also about 215 liquor dealers and about 65 local dealers in the Region. Among these major-trading entities are state owned corporations such as Tanzania Breweries Ltd, Agricultural, Building, Hardware and Household Supplies Co Ltd. There is much room for development and growth of Mwanza’s international export and import industry. There are few exporters mainly exporting fish and fish products, rice, scrap metal and timber to various countries. Importation is of variety of products that include textile goods processed foods stuffs beverages, medicines, spare parts, building materials, hardware, electrical goods and machinery. The main country source of Mwanza's imports is Kenya, Uganda, Taiwan, China, U.K, Korea, India, Democratic Republic of Congo and Belgium. The economic aid to this international import/export industry is well developed in Mwanza. Mwanza is home for several major banking institutions and zonal office for the National Insurance Corporation Mwanza has surplus of adequate and privately owned warehouses. Transportation in Mwanza is comprehensive across air, water and land. Commerce goes hand in hand with finance. People need to be financed, deposit, draw etc. their finances in the financial institutions. Due to Mwanza’s strategic geographical position and the favorable facilities, the region houses the major financial institutions of Tanzania. The Central Bank of Tanzania (BOT) assists the banking transactions of other banks. There are several different commercial bank branches located in Mwanza including CRDB, The National Micro Finance Bank (NMB), National Bank of Commerce (NBC), Exim bank, Standard Chartered bank, Bank Of Africa (BOA, Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA), Stanbic bank, Barclays bank, Diamond trust bank, Tanzania Postal Bank just to mention a few, there are also other financial institutions in the region such as Pride, Finca etc. which offer some loans to boost-up the trade in the region. The banks have penetrated to the interiors at least each district has a bank branch. The banks in the region offer various services. About 85 percent of Mwanza regional population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. In general, crop rotation levels per unit area are very low. This low level has been explained by agricultural experts to due to be the perpetual use of out-dated, inferior agricultural implements, soil exhaustion and soil infertility. In terms of land use, about 4,200 km2. of total land or about 21 percent is under small holder cultivation. Agriculture, the most important economic activity in the region, provides food for the fast growing population, raw materials for the agro-industries, foreign exchange for the country and lastly employment for the majority of the rural population. Major food crops produced in the region are: Maize, Paddy, millet/sorghum, cassava, sweet potatoes and chickpeas. Cotton is the only cash crop. am. One major occupation of the inhabitants along the shores of Lake Victoria in Mwanza region is fishing, and there are five fish processing plants in the area. Nile perch were previously introduced to the lake, and are exported in large quantities. For a better portrait of the consequences of the nile perch industry, see the academy award nominated documentary Darwin's Nightmare (2004) by Hubert Sauper. Although for the foreseeable future livestock husbandry, agriculture and fishing will remain the sectors offering the greatest development potentials to Mwanza region, an increasingly important role must be assigned to industrial activity as a vehicle of economic growth. It is through industrial development in the region that the ever increasing number of unemployed youths in the region could gain employment opportunities. Industrial establishments possible are those geared towards processing locally produced agricultural, fishing and livestock raw materials. Mwanza is served by Mwanza Airport. Precision Air provides flights between there and Nairobi - Kenyatta, Dar es Salaam, Kigoma, Kilimanjaro, and Bukoba.[6] Fly540 serves Dar es Salaam, Kigoma, Kilimanjaro, Tabora, and Zanzibar from Mwanza. Mwanza has two stadia. The CCM Kirumba Stadium has a seating capacity of 35,000 spectators. The stadium hosts football, netball, volleyball, basketball, badminton, and athletics. Finland Tampere, Finland: The relationship between Tampere and Mwanza is part of the North-South Local Government Co-operation Programme. The programme is coordinated by the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities and funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. The purpose is to support the Mwanza City Council in implementing the city strategy and in providing better services for its citizens. Western Sahara Tifariti, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Germany Würzburg, Germany Norway Arendal, Norway.