Kigoma (kēgōˈmäˈ) [key], municipality, capital of Kigoma prov., W Tanzania, a port on Lake Tanganyika. It is the terminus of the railroad from Dar-es-Salaam (completed 1914) and is connected by ship with Congo (Kinshasa) and Burundi. There are fisheries and food processing plants. Kigoma was an important settlement of Arab and Swahili ivory and slave traders between c.1850 and c.1890. The region was occupied by the Germans in the 1890s. Kigoma and Ujiji, to the southeast, were formerly combined into a single municipality. Kigoma was a major focus for refugees from Burundi in 1994–96.
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