Caprivi's government was friendlier to the Social Democrats and to the United Kingdom. The Zanzibar treaty of July 1890, meant Germany gave control of Zanzibar, an island near German East Africa to Britain in return for the island of Heligoland in the North Sea . Caprivi also got the Caprivi Strip added to German South West Africa. This is a narrow strip of land that links German South West Africa (now called Namibia), to the Zambezi River.