The territory under the sway of Germany on the east coast of Africa was the largest of Germany's Colonies, comprising an area double the size of Germany itself, 387,000 square miles. On the north the Colony is bounded by British East Africa and on the south by the Portuguese Colony of Mozambique.
Situated between the 2° and 10° S. the climate is tropical, and in parts on the coast there are dense mangrove swamps, with the usual luxuriant tropical vegetation.
The country rises rapidly, however, towards the interior where the Tanganyika plateau forms a high and healthy tableland over 3,500 feet high.
Range after range of mountains and foothills divide the coast from the majestic peak of Kilima 'Njaro on the borders of British East Africa, and whose slopes offer splendid conditions for European settlement.
The white population numbers roughly 5,500, mainly German officials, traders, soldiers, and managers of plantations; for, as in the other German Colonies, there are no settlers in the true sense, although Professor Bönn has said that there are "even some close settlements reproducing German village life."
The civil population indeed is composed chiefly of Britishers or Greeks, while there are, as elsewhere along the coast, a great many Banyans or Indian traders, who are British subjects, nearly every German being a soldier or an official.
The native population numbers 9,000,000—the two principal tribes being the Urundi with 1,500,000 and the Ruandi with 2,000,000 respectively.
From the German point of view this was an ideal "Colony," for there were abundant natural resources and a dense native population whose industry might assure prosperity for their German masters.
In acquiring East Africa the Germans had made a bid for the dominant interest in Central Africa and had by no means lost hope of absorbing the Congo Free State, which by international agreement was open to Free Trade. They went so far indeed as to offer to take the Congo Free State under "protection" when the atrocities of the Congo rubber-collecting trade were the subject of European concern. The aim and end of such a "protection" may easily be surmised.