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This area covers Stone Town’s development from a Swahili trading port linked to Indian Ocean routes to an Omani-ruled capital fortified at the Old Fort.
In the late 19th century, sultans consolidated power and sponsored civic projects, with the House of Wonders and Old Customs House marking administrative and ceremonial functions. Under the British Protectorate, commerce and law were formalized around places like Darajani Market and the Zanzibar High Court of Justice, while religious and educational institutions expanded. By the mid-20th century, political mobilization and the 1964 revolution restructured property and governance, and museums such as the Peace Memorial Museum framed public narratives of the islands. In later decades, urban planning extended east into Ng’ambo with housing at Michenzani and broader public services, and education and research grew through institutions like SUZA and the Natural History Museum.
In the late 19th century at Tippu Tip’s House in Shangani, a concealed tunnel moved enslaved people from the waterfront after the British Protectorate outlawed slavery in 1890, enabling the trade to continue. Eyewitness accounts tie the operation to Hamad bin Muhammad (Tippu Tip), showing how abolition laws were circumvented.
Since 2017, excavations led by Mark Horton and Tim Power beneath the Old Fort revealed a 16th-century Portuguese church and evidence of settlement from the late 10th century, including a freshwater well and imported ceramics. These results shift Stone Town’s origins earlier than Omani rule and link its growth to changing Indian Ocean trade routes.
In the mid-20th century in Ng’ambo, residents and planners organized the Ng’ambo Tuitakayo project to replace colonial-era crowded housing, with the Department of Urban and Rural Planning, African Architecture Matters, and the City of Amsterdam coordinating surveys and redesigns. The work redirected infrastructure and services toward a planned city center and moved the area away from ‘native’ classifications toward modern housing standards.
Between 1873 and 1879 at Christ Church, British missionaries led by Bishop Edward Steere built the cathedral over the site of Zanzibar’s former slave market, placing the altar above the whipping-post location after Sultan Barghash ended the open trade. The Universities Mission to Central Africa purchased the land with help from Reverend A. N. West and donor Jairam Senji, and the first Eucharist was held on December 25, 1880.
House of Wonders
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