KILWA, a seaport of Tanganyika Territory, East Africa, about 200 m. S. of Zanzibar. There are two Kilwas, one on the mainland—Kilwa Kivinje ; the other, the ancient city, on an island—Kilwa Kisiwani. Kilwa Kivinje, on the northern side of Kilwa bay, is regularly laid out, the houses in the European quarter being large and substantial. Pop. (1921) about 2,200. The harbour is poor and this with the lack of a railway hinders trade development.
Kilwa Kisiwani, 25 m. to the south of the modern town, pos sesses a deep harbour sheltered from all winds by projecting coral reefs. The island on which it is built is separated from the mainland by a shallow and narrow channel. There is a small modern quarter; the ruins of the ancient city include massive walls and bastions, remains of a palace and of two large mosques, of which the domed roofs are in fair preservation, besides several Arab forts. On the island of Songa Manara, at the southern end of Kilwa bay, hidden in dense vegetation, are the ruins of an other city, unknown to history. Fragments of palaces and mosques in carved limestone exist, and on the beach are the re mains of a lighthouse. Chinese coins, dating between A.D. 713 and 1201, and pieces of porcelain have been found on the sea shore, washed up from the reefs.
The sultanate of Kilwa is reputed to have been founded about A.D. 975 by Ali bin klasan, a Persian prince from Shiraz, upon the site of the ancient Greek colony of Rhapta. The new state, at first confined to the town of Kilwa, extended its influence along the coast from Zanzibar to Sofala, and the city came to be re garded as the capital of the Zenj "empire" (see ZANZIBAR : His tory). An Arab chronicle gives a list of over forty sovereigns who reigned at Kilwa in a period of five hundred years (cf. A. M.
H. J. Stokvis, Manuel d'histoire, Leiden, 1888, i. 558). Pedro Alvares Cabral, the Portuguese navigator, was the first European to visit it. His fleet, on its way to India, anchored in Kilwa bay in 1500. Kilwa was then a large and wealthy city, possessing, it is stated, three hundred mosques. In 1502 Kilwa submitted to Vasco da Gama, but the sultan neglecting to pay the tribute im posed upon him, the city in 1505 was occupied by the Portuguese. They built a fort there; the first erected by them on the east coast of Africa. Fighting ensued between the Arabs and the Por tuguese, the city was destroyed ; and in 1512 the Portuguese, whose ranks had been decimated by fever, temporarily abandoned the place. Subsequently Kilwa became one of the chief centres of the slave trade. Towards the end of the 17th century it fell under the dominion of the imams of Muscat, and on the separa tion in 1856 of their Arabian and African possessions became subject to the sultan of Zanzibar. It is stated by Sir Richard Burton that about 1830 the people of Kilwa Kisiwani migrated to the mainland and founded Kilwa Kivinje because of the un welcome attentions of British warships engaged in suppressing the slave trade. In 1885 Kilwa came under German rule, and the modern town was laid out by the Germans. Since 1919 Kilwa has been under British rule as part of Tanganyika Territory.
A version of the Arabic chronicles of Kilwa was published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1895.