Stone Town

Stone Town grew from a humble fishing settlement into the commercial capital of the Omani Sultanate, which moved its seat here from Muscat in the 1840s. For centuries the monsoon winds carried Persian, Arab, Indian and European traders to its harbour, and the town became the beating heart of the Indian Ocean trade in cloves, ivory and, most darkly, enslaved people. That collision of cultures is fossilised in its architecture, its Swahili language and its five daily calls to prayer.

The old quarter's fabric is astonishing: more than a thousand densely packed buildings layer Arab, Indian, Persian and European styles, threaded by alleys too narrow for cars. Landmarks tell the story in stone, the 17th-century Omani Old Fort, the towering House of Wonders (Beit-al-Ajaib) that boasted East Africa's first electricity and elevator, and the Anglican cathedral raised over the site of the old slave market. A modest house in these lanes was the birthplace of Farrokh Bulsara, later Freddie Mercury.

In 2000 the whole of Stone Town was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as an outstanding example of a Swahili coastal trading town. Today it is the seat of Zanzibar's semi-autonomous government, born of the 1964 revolution and union with Tanganyika. Restoration battles the salt air and crumbling coral stone, but the town endures as a living, working city rather than a museum piece.