Bagamoyo - Historical town

Getty Images/iStockphoto

Bagamoyo Town

Bagamoyo


With its cobwebbed portals and crumbling German-era colonial buildings, central Bagamoyo, or Mji Mkongwe (Stone Town) as it’s known locally, is well worth exploration. The most interesting area is along Ocean Rd. Here you’ll find the old German boma, built in 1897, and Liku House, which served as the German administrative headquarters.

There is also a school, which dates from the late 19th century and was the first multiracial school in what is now Tanzania. On the beach is the German customs house (1895); Bagamoyo’s port, where you can watch boat builders at work; and a busy fish market (on the site of the old slave market), with lively auctions most afternoons. Northwest of here are several small streets lined with carved doors similar to those found elsewhere along the coast. Further south is the mid-19th-century Old Fort.

The ridiculously steep fee levied to walk around the old town (required if you want to take photos or enter any of the buildings) is payable at the Antiquities Branch Office at the Old Fort, where you can also get a guide.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Bagamoyo attractions

1. Caravan Serai Museum

0.23 MILES

This undistinguished museum has a small display documenting the slave trade. It's at the town entrance, just past and diagonally opposite CRDB bank. More…

2. Catholic Museum

0.82 MILES

About 2km northwest of town and reached via a long, mango-tree-shaded avenue is the Catholic mission and museum, one of Bagamoyo’s highlights, with well…

3. College of Arts

1.08 MILES

Located about 500m southeast of Bagamoyo along the road to Dar es Salaam is this renowned theatre and arts college, home of the national dance company…

4. Kaole Ruins

3.05 MILES

Just southeast of Bagamoyo are these atmospheric ruins. At their centre are the remains of a 13th-century mosque, which is one of the oldest in mainland…

5. Mbweni Ruins

25.7 MILES

The upmarket suburb of Mbweni, 5km south of Zanzibar Town, was a Universities Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) base and settlement for former slaves in…

6. Kunduchi Ruins

25.92 MILES

These overgrown but worthwhile ruins include the remnants of a late 15th-century mosque as well as Arabic graves from the 18th or 19th centuries, with…

7. State House

26.93 MILES

Zanzibar's presidential palace was originally designed by British architect John Sinclair as the British Residency in 1903. Today it is not open to…

8. Beit el-Amani

27.01 MILES

This domed building, formerly the Peace Memorial Museum and now an archive, dates to 1925, when it was inaugurated as a memorial to the accords ending WWI…

  • placement: superzone
  • path: Destinations/POIs/superzone
  • possible size: [970, 250], [970, 90], [728, 90], [1, 1],
  • targeting:
    {
      "url": "tanzania/bagamoyo/attractions/bagamoyo-town/a/poi-sig/1438796/355641",
      "destination": "Bagamoyo",
      "continent": "Africa",
      "country": "Tanzania",
      "city": "Bagamoyo",
      "position": "superzone"
    }