Child stunting by council

Estimated share and number of stunted children under 5 in each of Tanzania's 195 councils. Prevalence ranges from 11% in Moshi Municipal Council to 58% in Kilolo District Council. Councils in the same region typically differ by about 10 percentage points, which region-level figures hide.

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Share of children under 5 who are stunted

Stunted means a height-for-age more than 2 standard deviations below the WHO median. High prevalence and large numbers point to different places: the highest rates are in Iringa, Njombe and Rukwa, while the largest numbers are in populous councils of the Lake Zone and the west.

Councils where 50% or more are stunted

How these estimates were made

The 2022 Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS-MIS) measured 5,516 children, about 25 per council. That is too few for reliable council figures on their own. We fitted a model linking each surveyed child's height-for-age to their age and sex, 15 household characteristics measured the same way in the survey and the census, and council features from the census and satellite imagery. We then applied the model to the 940,480 children under 5 in the 2022 census 10% sample and averaged the results by council.

Uncertainty comes from 200 simulated repetitions of the whole process. Aggregated to region, the estimates agree with the official TDHS-MIS figures within sampling error in all 31 regions. In an independent test, the model’s mean squared error was 8% of that of direct survey estimates, a roughly 3.5-fold reduction in typical error.

These are model-based estimates produced by Spacepilots. They are not official statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics, the Office of the Chief Government Statistician Zanzibar or the Ministry of Health; official region and national figures are those in the TDHS-MIS 2022 final report.

2.7mStunted children under 5

74Councils with stunting above 30%

187 / 195Council estimates rated reliable (CV < 20%)

±7Points, median 95% confidence interval

Full estimates

This map shows each council's band only. The preview report sets out the approach, the main findings and the quality of the estimates.

The full report and data package give stunting, severe stunting and mean height-for-age for all 195 councils, 150 districts and 31 regions, each with standard error, 95% confidence interval and reliability class, plus numbers of stunted children, experimental estimates for 4,336 wards, and detailed maps.

Download the preview report (PDF) →
Request the full report and data →

More maps

Basemap © OpenFreeMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors. Data: TDHS-MIS 2022 (The DHS Program); 2022 Population and Housing Census and boundaries (NBS); Google Open Buildings, Landsat 8 NDVI and Google Satellite Embedding. Estimates © Spacepilots 2026; not to be reproduced or redistributed without permission.

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