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Kilwa Swahili Trading City-State

Type Object Region Africa Time c. 1200–1600

Kilwa (Kilwa Kisiwani) was one of the most important maritime trading city-states on the Swahili Coast of East Africa, famed for its coral-stone buil…

Timeline

  1. c. 1300–1505Kilwa Kisiwani · Lindi RegionKilwa controlled Sofala's gold exports and Indian Ocean entrepôt trade; coral-stone buildings such as the Great Mosque and the Husuni Kubwa palace embodied an Islamic-Swahili hybrid civilization, making it a hub linking the Zambezi River basin with the Arab world.
  2. c. 1541–1550Kilwa Kisiwani · Lindi RegionBy the 1540s the authority of the Kilwa sultan had waned; the city maintained a secondary entrepôt function among competing ports such as Mombasa and Zanzibar, while local merchants continued to participate in monsoon trade with dhow vessels and maintained contacts with Ottoman and Arab intermediaries.

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