Itsandra is one of those places where the Comoros show both their history and their most relaxed side. A few kilometres north of Moroni, this coastal village was for centuries one of the archipelago's small Swahili maritime towns and the capital of one of the most powerful sultanates of Grande Comore. From that past remain the ruins of a fortified town and of a fort on the coast, witnesses to the wars between sultanates and to pirate raids.
Today Itsandra is best known for its quiet beach and as home to the Itsandra Beach Hotel & Resort, one of the best places to stay in the country, which makes it a very comfortable base for exploring the island. The mix of history, beach and good services, plus its closeness to Moroni and the airport, makes Itsandra an ideal starting point for discovering Grande Comore without giving up comfort.
This practical guide looks at Itsandra through a traveller's eyes: what to see in the village and its ruins, how to enjoy its beach and sunsets, where to stay and eat, and how to use it as a base for the island's big excursions. A destination that brings together, within a few kilometres, the sultanate past of the Comoros and some downtime facing the Indian Ocean.
Itsandra was one of the small Swahili maritime towns that emerged around the 14th century and, for a long time, the capital of one of the most powerful sultanates of Grande Comore, with the island's first port. It preserves the ruins of a fortified town and of a 17th-century fort, with stretches of wall and loopholes, evidence of the wars between sultanates and of the defence against Malagasy pirates. Its sultanate history, tied to that of Iconi and Moroni, is covered in detail on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The largest island and home of the capital: land of eleven warring sultanates, crowned by the active Karthala volcano, with Swahili Moroni and its mosques and dhows at its feet.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Itsandra, also called Itsandra Mdjini, is one of the oldest towns on Grande Comore. It grew up around the 14th century as one of the small Swahili maritime towns scattered along the archipelago's coasts, at the height of Indian Ocean trade. These city-states were home to Muslim communities of African, Arab and Shirazi origin. They lived off the sea trade that linked the Comoros with Zanzibar, the Swahili coast of East Africa, Madagascar, Arabia and India.
Itsandra had one decisive advantage: it had the island's first seaport, which made it a leading centre of trade and politics from early on. As the cradle of Swahili civilisation on Ngazidja, it was long one of the most influential towns on Grande Comore. It had a merchant elite and the institutions typical of these Indian Ocean towns: mosques, stone houses and a hierarchical social order.
Over the centuries, the island's patchwork of communities organised itself into sultanates. By the 17th century, Grande Comore was split into some eleven separate sultanates, and the two most powerful were Itsandra and Bambao (the latter centred on Iconi). Each sultanate revolved around a capital with its palace, where the sultan lived alongside his advisers.
As the capital of one of the island's dominant sultanates, Itsandra was a fortified town. The sultanates of Ngazidja were constantly at odds with one another, with wars, shifting alliances and disputes over who controlled trade. They also had to defend themselves against a recurring outside threat: raids by Malagasy pirates (the so-called Sakalava and Betsimisaraka), who plundered the Comorian coasts for loot and for captives to sell as slaves.
To protect itself, Itsandra surrounded itself with walls and, in the 17th century, built a fortress on the coast. Traces of that defensive system survive today: the remains of the fort, stretches of wall dotted with loopholes (openings for watching and firing) and a stairway of about 130 metres, lined with walls, that linked the fortress to the town. These remains are a valuable record of the military architecture of the Comorian sultanates.
Itsandra was therefore part of the network of sultanates that defined Grande Comore until the colonial period. Its history is bound up with that of Iconi, which had been the island's capital two centuries earlier, and with the archipelago's other historic towns. Together, these medinas and fortresses bear witness to the Swahili civilisation of the Indian Ocean, and in 2026 several of them were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
When French rule arrived in the late 19th century and the island was brought under a single administration, the sultanates lost their power. The old sultanate capitals, such as Itsandra and Iconi, were overshadowed by the rise of Moroni, which became the main town and later the capital of the territory. Itsandra became just another coastal village, though it kept its historical memory and its ruins.
After independence in 1975, and through the decades of political instability that followed, Itsandra remained a quiet town on the edge of the capital. Being close to Moroni and the airport, and having a beach, it gradually became attractive to the country's small but growing tourism. This was especially true after a beach resort hotel opened there, which has become one of the best places to stay in the archipelago.
Today, Itsandra offers an unusual mix: the sultanate past of its ruins and walls, the everyday life of a Comorian village and the comforts of a seafront resort. It is both a window onto the history of the sultanates of Ngazidja and a comfortable, pleasant base for exploring Grande Comore, from the medina of Moroni, newly listed as a World Heritage Site, to Mount Karthala and the island's beaches.
