The Kwere (Ngh'were) of Tanzania

The Kwere are a matrilineal ethnic and linguistic group based in the Bagamoyo District, Pwani Region of coastal Tanzania. The primary language spoken is Ngh'wele, called Kikwere in Swahili.

History

In 1987, the Kwere population was estimated to number 98,000. The government of Tanzania released data for the 2012 census, but it was not by ethnic group and such detail may not be published in the near future. In the country's 1967 population census, 48,132 people on the mainland identified themselves as belonging to the Ngh’wele ethnic group. The overwhelming majority of them lived in their traditional residential areas in Bagamoyo district (35,404 people), with another 3,857 people living in neighboring Kisarawe district. In addition, small groups of Ngh’wele people were said to be residents of the Morogoro Region (3,764) and Dar es Salaam (2,902). Reliable census data since 1967 are not available, as subsequent government demographic collections no longer record ethnicity.