STONE TOWN

Stone Town is the old city and cultural heart of Zanzibar. Despite the abandonment following independence, the town plan has remained intact and is most likely the finest example of Merchant Swahili settlements in East Africa. Most of the buildings were built in the IXX century when Zanzibar, still under the influence of the Oman Empire, was one of the most important commercial centers of the Indian Ocean together with the island of Lamu, Kenya. The narrow winding streets of the city recall the Arab and North African medinas but there is clearly a fusion of different styles. The buildings are characterized by large windows, sometimes inlaid colored glass, loggias, balconies and verandas typically colonial and by the finely worked wooden doors typically Indio-Arabic.
The Swahili culture is the result of the assimilation by Bantu culture with other different cultures such as the European [Portuguese, French, German, British], the persian-shiraz, the Indian and the Arab ones. To quote the definition of UNO which in 2000 included Stone Town in the World Heritage City the town "is an exceptional expression of cultural fusion and harmonization".