If Zanzibar makes you think of crowded beaches and resorts, Pemba is the opposite: the green, quiet and authentic island of the archipelago, where tourism barely shows and life follows the unhurried rhythm of the clove plantations, the fishermen and the most genuine Swahili culture. Smaller, hillier and leafier than Unguja, Pemba was for decades the world's largest producer of cloves, and it still smells of spice when the breeze comes down from the hills.
For divers, Pemba is a legend. The deep channel separating it from the mainland creates unique conditions: vertical walls dropping tens of metres, pristine corals, crystal-clear water and spectacular marine life, with visibility that many consider the best in East Africa. It is a world-class dive destination that is still largely uncrowded, with lodges that combine nature and exclusivity in front of almost deserted reefs.
This guide covers Pemba from a practical angle: how to get there by plane or ferry, where to dive its famous walls and what it costs, which islets and reefs are worth it, what the green interior of the clove plantations is like, which Swahili ruins you can visit and how to get around an island where people still travel slowly. Ideal for divers, nature lovers and anyone looking for the Zanzibar of old, without the crowds.
Pemba shares Zanzibar's great history: for centuries it was part of the Swahili coast, that crossroads of Africa, Arabia, Persia and India which flourished on Indian Ocean trade driven by the monsoon winds and the dhows. The island has important medieval Swahili ruins, such as those at Ras Mkumbuu and Chwaka, evidence of prosperous trading settlements between the 9th and 15th centuries. With the rise of the Omani-linked Sultanate of Zanzibar in the 19th century, Pemba became key for an economic reason: its clove plantations, worked by enslaved people, made it the world's largest producer of the spice. Like the rest of the archipelago, it went through the British protectorate, independence in 1963, the traumatic 1964 revolution and the union with Tanganyika that gave birth to Tanzania, while keeping a strong character of its own and a political identity often distinct from Unguja's. The full history of Swahili culture and the sultanate 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 Zanzibar, 120 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 Arab sailors who crossed the Indian Ocean called it Al Jazira Al Khadra, 'the green island', and the name still suits it perfectly: Pemba is smaller, wetter and far lusher than its neighbour Unguja, covered in green hills, coconut palms and plantations. But long before spices shaped its destiny, Pemba was already part of one of the most remarkable trading civilisations in African history: Swahili culture.
Swahili civilisation flourished from the 8th century along the whole coast of East Africa, from Somalia to Mozambique, as the product of the age-old Indian Ocean trade. Its protagonists were African coastal Bantu peoples who adopted Islam and built towns of coral stone, trading with Arabs, Persians and Indians who arrived every year on the monsoon winds. They spoke Kiswahili, a Bantu language with Arabic loanwords that became the lingua franca of trade in the region.
Pemba was an important link in that network. Its position, its anchorages and its fertility made it attractive for settlement and trade from very early times. The island's fishing and farming communities took part in the exchange that linked the African interior with Asia, in a world where the sea did not divide but connected. That deep past has left impressive ruins that bear witness to the prosperity the island once reached.
The most telling evidence of Pemba's Swahili past is its medieval ruins. On the Ras Mkumbuu peninsula, west of present-day Chake Chake, a prosperous trading town stood between the 9th and 15th centuries, taking part in the great Indian Ocean exchange. The remains of a large coral-stone mosque survive there (one of the oldest in East Africa), with its columns and mihrab, along with monumental tombs, some of them pillar-shaped, typical of Swahili funerary architecture.
Ras Mkumbuu was not the only centre: the island had other important settlements, such as the site of Chwaka in the north, with its own ruined mosques and tombs. These towns lived off the trade in ivory, hides, timber and other African goods, which they exchanged for cloth, glass beads, porcelain and manufactured goods from Asia. The imported ceramics found in excavations, including Chinese porcelain, show just how connected Pemba was to distant worlds.
The heyday of these towns coincided with the flowering of the whole Swahili coast during the Middle Ages, the same era in which great trading hubs such as Kilwa, further south, were thriving. Towards the end of the medieval period many of these centres declined, for reasons that combine shifts in trade routes, rivalries and, later, the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean from 1498. Pemba's ruins remained as silent witnesses to that African commercial splendour.
Pemba's modern destiny was shaped by one plant: the clove. When the Omani sultan Said bin Sultan moved his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar in 1840, drawn by the wealth of the Indian Ocean trade, he promoted clove growing across the archipelago. Pemba, with its fertile soil and humid climate, proved especially well suited, and over time it became the world's largest clove producer, a position it held for much of the 20th century.
That wealth rested on a brutal foundation. The clove plantations of Pemba and Unguja were worked by enslaved labour. Zanzibar was the largest slave market in East Africa: thousands of people captured in the interior of the continent were marched in chains to the coast, sold in Stone Town and sent to the islands' plantations or shipped to Arabia and the Persian Gulf. It must be said plainly: the prosperity of Pemba's cloves was built on the suffering of those enslaved people.
Under British pressure, the Zanzibar slave market closed in 1873, and slavery as a legal institution was abolished in 1897. Pemba's economy continued to revolve around cloves, coconuts and fishing, and the island kept its rural and deeply Swahili character, somewhat removed from the major events being decided in the capital, Stone Town.
In 1890 Zanzibar (Unguja and Pemba) became a British protectorate. The sultans reigned in name while real power lay with the British consul. Pemba carried on with its rural life, tied to cloves, somewhat distant from the ups and downs of the capital.
The 20th century brought deep and traumatic change. Zanzibar gained independence from the United Kingdom in December 1963 as a monarchy under the sultan, but the new order reflected inequalities built up over generations. In January 1964 the Zanzibar Revolution broke out, an African uprising that overthrew the sultan and the Arab-majority government in an episode of great violence, with thousands killed and much of the population of Arab and Indian origin exiled or expelled. It is a chapter the sources recount starkly, and it left deep wounds across all of Zanzibari society.
A few months later, in April 1964, Zanzibar joined Tanganyika (independent since 1961) to form the United Republic of Tanzania, keeping a wide degree of autonomy. Over the following decades, however, Pemba developed a political identity of its own, often different from and sometimes at odds with that of Unguja, which led to recurring tensions at election time. That distinctiveness (an island that feels different, with its own character within the archipelago) is part of Pemba's personality to this day.
Unlike Unguja, which in recent decades has become a mass beach destination, Pemba has stayed much further from tourism, keeping its rural, green and authentic character. Cloves are still important to its economy, although its global weight has shrunk compared with other producers; fishing, farming and coconuts round out island life.
In recent times Pemba has started to gain fame for one very specific reason: it is one of the best diving destinations in the Indian Ocean. The deep channel separating it from the mainland creates exceptional conditions (vertical walls, healthy corals, extraordinary visibility and abundant marine life), and its reefs, far less visited than Unguja's, offer an almost untouched experience. Around that draw a small range of dive lodges and eco-luxury stays has grown up, including some places famous for their exclusivity and seclusion.
Today Pemba is a destination for travellers looking for exactly the opposite of crowds: divers, nature lovers, and people interested in Swahili history and the authentic culture of the green island. The challenge, as in so many places, is to develop tourism that benefits local communities and respects both the fragile marine environment and the traditions of a conservative society. With its clove plantations, medieval ruins, quiet villages and coral walls, Pemba offers a window onto the Zanzibar of old, the one many no longer find on Unguja.
