 It is both the division and district headquarters.The population is heterogeneous.The indigenous people are largely the Ndamba, Mbunga and Pogolo tribes and the population today constitutes also the descendants of Lipangalala, Ndwangira and Mfalikuivahaa, who as leaders from Zululand and Southern Africa arriving in Ifakara and the region as of the late 1860s (Larson 1976