Makunduchi is a Tanzanian town, located the southeastern tip of

Unguja Unguja (also referred to as "Zanzibar Island" or simply "Zanzibar", in grc, Μενουθιάς, Menuthias – as mentioned in The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'') is the largest and most populated island of the Zanzibar archipelago, in Tanza ...

(Zanzibar Island), south of

Jambiani Jambiani is a group of villages on the Tanzanian island of Unguja, part of Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago ...

, in the South District of the

Zanzibar Central/South Region Unguja South Region, Zanzibar South Region or South Zanzibar Region (''Mkoa wa Unguja Kusini'' in Swahili) is one of the 31 regions of Tanzania. The region covers an area of . The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nati ...

. The town comprises two distinct settlements, about 2 km from each other, "Old Makunduchi" and "New Makunduchi". Old Makunduchi is a small

fishermen A fisher or fisherman is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishers and fish farmers. Fishers may be professional or recre ...

's village, while New Makunduchi has some modern buildings, shops, as well as some

blocks of flats A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdictio ...

that were built in the 1970s with the aid of

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

funds and engineers. Makunduchi is mostly known for the Mwaka Kogwa or Mwaka Koga ("show of the year") celebrations, of Shirazi heritage, that take place in July/August to celebrate the New Year. In Mwaka Kogwa, a ritual battle is fought, at the end of which a

hut A hut is a small dwelling, which may be constructed of various local materials. Huts are a type of vernacular architecture because they are built of readily available materials such as wood, snow, ice, stone, grass, palm leaves, branches, hid ...

is burned. Then, predictions are made for the new year, based on the direction taken by the smoke. Tours are organised to visit the festival and to explain and point out the customs.

Tourism

Makunduchi is a protected area in Zanzibar. The first hotel was built in Makunduchi beach in 2006.

Footnotes

Populated places in Zanzibar Shirazi people Swahili people Swahili city-states Swahili culture {{zanzibar-stub

Tourism

See also

Footnotes