Moving to Dar es Salaam

Today we look at moving to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania from Madrid in Spain. We highlight cost of living and other major differences likely to be experienced in our series of short blogs on moving between different international locations.
In Dar es Salaam people speak English and Swahili. In Madrid people speak Spanish (Castilian), Catalan and its variant Valencian, Gallego (Galician) and Euskera (Basque).

Dar es Salaam is the largest city in Tanzania. Barcelona is the capital and the most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain. Dar es Salaam is the country's richest city and a regionally important economic centre. About one half of Tanzania's manufacturing employment is located in the city despite the fact that Dar holds only ten percent of Tanzania's population. Barcelona's economy consists of finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts and international trade. Barcelona has a long-standing mercantile tradition.

The overall cost of living rank in Dar es Salaam is 203 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with low cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Madrid to Dar es Salaam will experience a change in cost of living of -22.2%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Dar es Salaam is ranked as a high degree of hardship location with a hardship index of 30% compared to Madrid with a hardship index of 10% which is a minimal hardship location.

Source: Cost of Living Dar es Salaam Tanzania as at July 2011.