While Zanzibar draws the crowds, Mafia Island remains one of the great secrets of the Indian Ocean: a remote archipelago off the Rufiji delta, with no mass resorts or noisy beach bars, where the real show happens underwater. It is a haven for divers and sea lovers, protected by one of the largest marine parks in East Africa, with coral reefs in exceptional condition and marine life that has kept Mafia off the tourist trail and on the lists of the world's best diving destinations.
Its most famous jewel is the whale sharks. Every season, these peaceful giants —the largest fish in the world, which can exceed ten metres— come to the waters off Kilindoni to feed on plankton, and Mafia is one of the few places in the world where you can swim with them fairly reliably. Add to that diving in Chole Bay, turtles, pristine reefs and almost deserted beaches.
This guide covers Mafia Island from a practical angle: how to get there by plane, how much the marine park and whale shark trips cost, when to go depending on what you're after, which islets with Swahili ruins are worth it, how to get around and where to stay in a destination of eco-lodges. Ideal for divers, snorkellers and travellers looking for pure nature and a real break, far from mass tourism.
Mafia Island, despite its name (which has nothing to do with the Sicilian mafia and probably comes from the Arabic morfiyeh, 'group' or 'archipelago', or from the Swahili mahali pa afya, 'healthy place'), has a history going back to Swahili civilisation. For centuries it was part of the Indian Ocean trade network driven by the monsoon winds and dhows, and on the neighbouring islets —above all Chole and Juani— ruins of medieval Swahili settlements survive, with mosques and coral-stone tombs, once linked to the great trading hub of Kilwa, further south. The island saw the Portuguese come and go, the influence of the Sultanate of Zanzibar and Oman, and the German and then British colonial periods, before becoming part of independent Tanzania. In 1995 the Mafia Island Marine Park was created, the first in Tanzania, to protect its exceptional reefs. The detailed history of the Swahili coast and the Indian Ocean is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The spice archipelago: Stone Town and its Swahili, Arab and colonial history, the beaches of Unguja, green clove-growing Pemba and the reefs of Mafia.
Read the history of Zanzibar and the islands →They depart from Dar es-Salam, 136 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The first thing that surprises any traveller is the name: why is a paradise island in the Indian Ocean called 'Mafia'? The answer clears up the misunderstanding: it has nothing to do with the Sicilian Mafia, which didn't even exist as such when the island already had this name. Sources suggest several etymologies, all older than and unrelated to the criminal organisation: it could come from the Arabic morfiyeh, meaning 'group' or 'archipelago', referring to the cluster of islands; or from the Swahili mahali pa afya, 'healthy place' or 'place of good health'. Either way, it's an old name, tied to the geography and language of the coast.
Mafia Island is the main island of a small archipelago off the southern coast of mainland Tanzania, near the delta of the Rufiji River, whose nutrient-rich waters partly explain the area's extraordinary marine life. Alongside Mafia are the islets of Chole, Juani, Jibondo and others, all part of the same story.
Like the rest of the East African coast, Mafia was inhabited from very early times by peoples who lived from the sea and from farming, and it became part, very early on, of the vast trading network of the Indian Ocean. That connection with distant worlds (Arabia, Persia, India) shaped the civilisation that would define its history: Swahili culture.
From the Middle Ages, Mafia was part of Swahili civilisation: the African, urban and Muslim culture that flourished along the East African coast thanks to Indian Ocean trade. Its main players were coastal Bantu peoples who adopted Islam and built settlements of coral stone. They traded with Arabs, Persians and Indians who arrived every year in their dhows, the lateen-sailed boats carried by the monsoon winds.
The monsoon cycle, with winds blowing towards Africa for half the year and back towards Asia for the other half, made sailing predictable and turned African ports into meeting points where merchants from different worlds spent months. African goods (ivory, hides, timber, gold, and enslaved people too) were exchanged for cloth, glass beads, porcelain and manufactured goods from Asia. Out of that contact came a mixed culture, with its own language, Kiswahili, and a network of towns along the shore.
Mafia was especially tied to the great trading hub of Kilwa, further south, the most powerful city-state on the Swahili coast at its peak. The wealth of the area drew settlement and trade, and on the islets of the archipelago, especially Chole and Juani, towns grew up that took part in that exchange. The ruins that survive today are the silent record of that prosperous past.
Mafia's Swahili past survives, in tangible form, in the ruins on its islets. On Juani island are the remains of Kua, a Swahili settlement that became a centre of some importance, with coral-stone mosques and tombs now wrapped in vegetation. Kua declined and was abandoned. Local tradition surrounds its end with legends, though the precise historical details are uncertain.
Later, in the 19th century, the centre of the archipelago moved to the small island of Chole, which became the commercial and administrative heart of the area under the influence of the Sultanate of Zanzibar and Oman. A customs house, merchants' houses, a prison and other coral-stone buildings went up on Chole. Their ruins, embraced by giant baobabs and mangroves, now give the island a unique atmosphere, part historic site and part jungle.
These ruins tell the story of an archipelago that, though remote, took part in the great movements of the Indian Ocean: the trade in spices and ivory, the slave trade that supplied the plantations, and the power of the sultans of Zanzibar. These settlements declined as trade routes changed, slavery was abolished and, finally, European colonial rule arrived and reorganised the whole region.
Like the whole Swahili coast, Mafia felt the great swings of Indian Ocean history. After Vasco da Gama arrived in 1498, the Portuguese dominated the coast's trade during the 16th century, imposing themselves on the Swahili city-states by force. That dominance was broken by the Omanis, who from the 17th century drove out the Portuguese and extended their influence along the African coast. Mafia thus came into the orbit of Oman's growing power and, later, of the Sultanate of Zanzibar.
In the 19th century, when the Omani capital moved to Zanzibar (1840) and the trade in spices, ivory and slaves boomed, Mafia and its islets became part of that economy, with Chole at its centre. It's important to remember that this prosperity rested on slave labour and on the trade that made Zanzibar the largest slave market in East Africa, a chapter that must be told without euphemisms.
The 'Scramble for Africa' among the European powers reached Mafia too. The island first came under German control, as part of German East Africa, and then, after the First World War, under British control, becoming part of the Tanganyika Territory under mandate. During that period, the island's economy revolved around coconuts and fishing. When Tanganyika became independent in 1961 and united with Zanzibar in 1964 to form Tanzania, Mafia became administratively part of the mainland of the new country, unlike the Zanzibar islands (Unguja and Pemba).
The big turning point for modern Mafia came with conservation. In 1995, Tanzania created the Mafia Island Marine Park, the country's first marine park and one of the largest in the Indian Ocean. Its aim was to protect exceptionally healthy and biodiverse coral reefs, along with seagrass beds, mangroves and the fishing communities that depend on that ecosystem. The park combines environmental protection with sustainable use by local people, in a model of participatory management.
That protection, together with the island's isolation and the absence of mass tourism, made Mafia a niche destination for divers and nature lovers. On top of the reefs of Chole Bay and the outer waters came another world-class draw: whale sharks, which come seasonally to feed off Kilindoni, making Mafia one of the few places on the planet where swimming with these giants is fairly reliable. Sea turtle nesting beaches round off the island's natural value.
Today Mafia is both a nature sanctuary and home to Swahili communities who live from fishing and, more and more, from responsible tourism. The accommodation on offer, low-impact eco-lodges, some famous for their exclusivity, reflects that commitment to small-scale tourism. The challenge is the usual one: making sure conservation benefits local people, tourism doesn't damage the fragile ecosystem, and pressure on the whale sharks and reefs is managed responsibly. With its Swahili history, its sleeping ruins and its extraordinary sea, Mafia is a reminder of what the Indian Ocean coast was like before the crowds.
