Mombasa

Mombasa, city and chief seaport of Kenya, capital of Coast Province, on a bay of the Indian Ocean just south of the equator. The fast-growing city, which also serves as a port for north-east Tanzania and landlocked Uganda, includes Old Mombasa, located on a small offshore island (16 sq km/6 sq mi), and a larger, more modern mainland metropolitan area connected to the island by causeway, bridge, and ferries. Kilindini, a modern deep-water harbour on the western side of the island, has extensive docks, shipyards, and sugar and petroleum refineries. Old Mombasa Harbour, on the eastern side of the island, handles mainly dhows and other small coastal trading vessels. Fort Jesus, built by the Portuguese in the 1590s, is maintained as a museum. Mombasa Polytechnic (1948) is in the city.

Mombasa was founded around the 8th century by Arab traders. It was visited in the 1330s by the noted Arab traveller Ibn Batuta and in 1498 by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. Mombasa later changed hands several times before coming under the control of the sultan of Zanzibar in 1840. It passed to the British in 1895 and was the capital of the British East Africa Protectorate until 1907. It was made the capital of the coastal Protectorate of Kenya in 1920, and in 1963 it became part of newly independent Kenya (which includes the former protectorate and colony of Kenya). Since then the city has been developed as a commercial seaport and a tourist resort. In 2002 an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa became the target of a terrorist attack that killed several people. Population 660,800 (1999).