Mangapwani is a town on the
Tanzania
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...
n island of
Unguja
Unguja (also referred to as "Zanzibar Island" or simply "Zanzibar", in – as mentioned in The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'') is the largest and most populated island of the Zanzibar archipelago, in Tanzania.
History
Geography
Unguja is ...
, the main island of
Zanzibar
Zanzibar is a Tanzanian archipelago off the coast of East Africa. It is located in the Indian Ocean, and consists of many small Island, islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, referred to informally as Zanzibar) and Pemba Island. ...
. It is located on the northwest coast, north of the Zanzibari capital of
Stone Town
Stonetown of Zanzibar (), also known as , is the old part of Zanzibar City, the main city of Zanzibar, in Tanzania. The newer portion of the city is known as Ng'ambo, Swahili for 'the other side'. Stone Town is located on the western coast of Un ...
.
The town's name means "Arabian Shore" in
swahili,
[More specifically, the word "manga" refers to ]Muscat
Muscat (, ) is the capital and most populous city in Oman. It is the seat of the Governorate of Muscat. According to the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), the population of the Muscat Governorate in 2022 was 1.72 million. ...
(Omani
Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline ...
) arabs; arabs born in Zanzibar are called ''mwarabu''. See W.H. Ingrams, ''Zanzibar, Its History and Its People'' p. 205
/ref> a name which probably dates from the black-market slavery days of the 1840s to 1880s. The shoreline here contains numerous caves, some of which were used for holding slaves at that time. Among the caves is a popular attraction, the Coral Cavern, which is located two kilometres south of the town. The caves of Mangapwani were discovered by Joseph Thomas Last, a British explorer and missionary in East African in the 1870's. There is also a famous slave chamber still in Mangapwani only away, which is about a 3 minute drive.
Footnotes
References
*Finke, J. (2006) ''The Rough Guide to Zanzibar (2nd edition).'' New York: Rough Guides.
Villages in Zanzibar
{{Zanzibar-geo-stub