The Spice Zanzibar Island is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Tanzania. Good hotels and beaches in picturesque and historically very interesting surroundings make Zanzibar well worth visiting. The island has a long history. The original inhabitants were probably Bantus crossing the sea from the mainland of East Africa before traders and sailors from the Arabic peninsula went ashore on the island more than one thousand years ago. The Arabic influence is considerable and has leaven all through both culture and religion.

Zanzibar Town was a from the 18th century a very important center for dealer in ivory and slave trading. The old Stone Town in Zanzibar Town reminds you of what happened during that era. In connection to the Anglican Church there is a museum showing where and how the slaves we kept awaiting to be sold at the nearby slave market. Zanzibar is well known for its spices and a tour around the island to see and learn to know how these spices are grown and to enjoy their nice smell is refreshing for both eye, nose and soul.

Zanzibar History & Culture
When most of the western world was still sunk in the darkness of the Middle Ages, Zanzibar was already a meeting place for traders from the great Oriental cultures China, Persia and Arabia. It nestles in the middle of a mercantile civilization, stretching from Somalia in the north down the coast of East Africa to Mozambique in the south. This kingdom and its inhabitants were known as the Swahili the people of coast.

They traded gold, ivory and cloth with visitors from across the India Ocean, built handsome stone houses and had well development system of government, Envoys, merchants and even pirates from as far away as Japan and Russia came to Zanzibar and its environs in sailing ships, blown across the seas by the by the north east monsoon and returning, their holds laden with trade goods, on the south west wind .be confined on the island until the ships which were to transport them north were made ready

Zanzibar History & Culture
When most of the western world was still sunk in the darkness of the Middle Ages, Zanzibar was already a meeting place for traders from the great Oriental cultures of China, Persia and Arabia. It nestle in the middle of a mercantile civilization, stretching from Somalia in the north down the coast of East Africa to Mozambique in the south. This kingdom and its inhabitants were known as the Swahili the people of coast.

They traded gold, ivory and cloth with visitors from across the India Ocean, built handsome stone houses and had well development system of government, Envoys, merchants and even pirates from as far away as Japan and Russia came to Zanzibar and its environs in sailing ships, blown across the seas by the by the north east monsoon and returning, their holds laden with trade goods, on the south west wind .be confined on the island until the ships which were to transport them north were made ready.

In 1828 the flagship of Sultan Seyyid Said, one of Oman's most powerful and influential rulers, landed at Zanzibar. The Sultan had previously been too busy defending Oman against its many would-be conquerors to visit the island in person, but he was enchanted by what he saw. In contras to the dry, rocky desert of Oman, Zanzibar was green, lush and filed with source of fresh water. More importantly, it had strategic advantages - safe, defensible and close to the African mainland, the source of his wealth, In 1840 Said moved his entire household to Zanzibar and declared it the new capital of his empire. Said and his many relatives and associates built numerous places, bath house and country manors on Zanzibar, and introduced the commercial farming of cloves, sugar and other crops. Said's empire went from strength to strength, fueled all the time by the flow of miserable humanity that marched in chains from the regions of the great lakes and beyond, to be sold for ever hinger prices in the great slave market in the middle of stone town.

But it couldn't last. By 180, the British had put an end to the once great empire of the Omani sultanate. Through a combination of briber, diplomacy and the odd judicious naval bombardment, Britain abolished the slave trade in East Africa and ultimately declared Zanzibar a protectorate. The then Sultan, Ali, became a British Vassal, and between them Britain and Germany carved up the Sultan's domain, which had once stretched as far inland as lake Malawi. Although the sultans remained nominally on the throne, their power was ended and their wealth used up.

The era on the British on Zanzibar, which saw the slave market destroyed and an Anglican cathedral built in its back to the Omani sultans. But the reign of the new sultan was short-lived, he was ousted in 1964 by a violent revolution. and today lives quietly on the south coast of England. After the revolution the new Zanzibar government of mainland Tanganyika to form a single state, renamed Tanzania Zanzibar was run along socialist, single - party lines by the new revolutionary government, and received political support and financial aid from countries such as Bulgaria, East Germany and China. However in the 1980s the first presidential election took place, and Zanzibar's economy slowly become less state-controlled, with same private sector enterprise being allowed. the first half of the 1990s saw the rise of a multi-party system of government and the development of Zanzibar's newest industry-tourism.

Zanzibar's most famous son - Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury, whose real name was Farouk Bulsara, was born in Stone Town, Zanzibar, on September 5th, 1946. Freddie's parent belonged to the parsee faith , the ancient Zoroastrian religion originating from Persia. Many parsees emigrated to India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran, resulting in a sizeable Parsee population in India, and many traveled to Zanzibar to work for the British government.

Freddie live in Zanzibar until the age of seven ( spending some of his early year in the bulding that is now the Zanzibar Galley shop on Kenyatta Road). At seven he was sent to boarding school in India, returning to Zanzibar occasionally until is parents emigrated to the UK before the revolution of 1964. Freddie went to art school in England and eventual rock stardom with his band Queen, becoming the world's best know Asian pop singer before his untimely death from an AIDS related illness in 1991. Today fans from across the would visit Zanzibar to pray tribute to his musical genius.