ABSTRACT
Eastern Africa’s ‘Swahili coast’ is conventionally considered to extend from around Mogadishu (Somalia, 2.0333° N, 45.3500° E) in the north, to either Cape Delgado (10.8600° S, 40.6400° E) near the modern Mozambique–Tanzania border (for example, Kusimba 1999: 21) or Sofala (19.8333° S, 34.8500° E) in southern Mozambique (for example, Horton and Middleton 2000: 5, Map 1.1), and to include near-shore islands and archipelagos (for example, Lamu, Pemba, Zanzibar, Mafia and Kerimba), the Comoros Islands, and sections of northwest Madagascar (LaViolette 2013: 903, Fig. 62.1). As a geographical entity, the eastern African coast extends beyond Mogadishu up to Cape Guardafui (Somaliland) and the island of Socotra (Yemen), although in the contemporary political geography of the Indian Ocean the latter is considered to be part of Asia. Both localities were certainly connected to Swahili communities further south, but were never fully part of ‘the Swahili world’; likewise, Chibuene, other sites around Vilanculos Bay and Inhambane in southern Mozambique are often periodically included in discussions of the Swahili world and its antecedents (for example, Chami 1994: 14–18; Ekblom and Sinclair, this volume) but strictly speaking were not part of the Swahili coast. Here, following more dominant convention, we consider the stretch of coastline and nearshore islands between Mogadishu and Sofala, along with the Comoros and north-western Madagascar, as all forming part of the geography of the ‘Swahili coast’.
