Tanzania is located in eastern Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean. Shortly after achieving independence from Britain in the early 1960s, the mainland Tanganyika and the island of Zanzibar merged to form the nation of Tanzania in 1964. From independence until the mid-1980s, Tanzania was a one-party state with a socialist model of economic development. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Tanzania undertook a number of political and economic reforms, and multiparty elections in 1994 ended the one-party rule. Tanzania’s economy is heavily dependent on agriculture, which is vulnerable to climatic conditions. Although it has achieved sustained high growth from 2000 to 2008, Tanzania remains one of the poorest countries in the world.