Stone Town — Mji Mkongwe, or “Old Town” in Swahili — is the historic core of Zanzibar City and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000. It stands as one of the best-preserved Swahili coastal trading towns in East Africa, its urban fabric and townscape left virtually intact.
The quarter reflects more than a thousand years of trade that brought together and blended African, Arab, Persian, Indian, and European influences. As a 19th-century hub of the spice and, historically, the slave trade, it drew merchants from across the Indian Ocean, and that fusion is written into its architecture.
Most of the landmark buildings date from the 18th and 19th centuries: the Old Fort; the House of Wonders, the ceremonial palace built by Sultan Barghash in 1883 that was the first building in Zanzibar with electricity and the first in East Africa with an elevator; the Old Dispensary; St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Cathedral; and Christ Church Anglican Cathedral, built on the site of the former slave market.
The streets themselves are the attraction. Buildings of coral-rag masonry finished in lime plaster line a maze of narrow lanes, and the intricately carved wooden doors — with their floral motifs, geometric patterns, and Arabic inscriptions — are the town’s iconic symbol of wealth and craftsmanship.
