Stone Town, Zanzibar

A town built out of coral stone on a promontory off Unguja, which is why it is that colour, and famous for its carved doors, some cut with verses of the Qur’an and others with Indian lotus motifs, because this was where the Swahili coast, Oman, India and Europe met. It grew from an eleventh-century fishing village called Shangani into one of the great trading ports of the Indian Ocean, and the moment that made it was 1824, when Sultan Said bin Sultan moved his seat here from Muscat. The nineteenth-century wealth came from two trades and the entry will name both: spices, and slaves. It became a British protectorate in 1890. The Old Fort dates to 1699 and the House of Wonders to 1883. UNESCO listed it in 2000, and about 80 percent of its 1,709 buildings need ongoing repair, which you will notice walking around.