British East Africa

Central Africa, c. 1902

British East Africa, territories that were formerly under British control in eastern Africa—namely Kenya, Uganda, and Zanzibar and Tanganyika (now Tanzania).

British penetration of the area began at Zanzibar in the last quarter of the 19th century. In 1888 the Imperial British East Africa Company established claims to territory in what is now Kenya. In 1890 and 1894 British protectorates were established over the sultanate of Zanzibar and the kingdom of Buganda (Uganda), respectively, and in 1895 the company’s territory in Kenya was transferred to the crown as the East Africa Protectorate (after 1920, the Kenya Colony and the Kenya Protectorate). Under the Treaty of Versailles (signed June 1919; enacted January 1920), Britain was awarded the former German territory of Tanganyika as a League of Nations mandate.

All of these territories achieved political independence in the 1960s, and Zanzibar united with Tanganyika to form Tanzania in 1964.