Talk:Zanzibar

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Comments[edit]

As a female traveling alone to Zanzibar are there any concerns I should know? I will be consulting with a health clinic there, but will be staying at a hotel and having my meals on my own. Any suggestions regarding places to avoid are appreciated.

Does anyone know how suitable the roads are for a mountain bike trip around the island?

When I was there over a year ago the roads were pretty terrible, but I think you could do it and it would certainly be interesting and beautiful. Some people rent scooters in Stone Town and go to the east beaches or tour around the southern half of the island, that's pretty common. The road that goes up to the north as I remember is pretty ok for about half the way, and then gets bumpier as you get north. But nothing you couldn't handle. I say do it, sounds like fun... – (WT-en) cacahuate talk 22:20, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

Security[edit]

I recently stayed at the resort where the tourist was shot and asked the manager about it. She confirmed the incident, but explained that their is very little THEY can do to prevent it from reoccurring: Arming their guards would not only be illegal, but may also increase gun related incidents. Building a wall between the beach and the resort would be absurd.

I'm taking her word that crime is now under control after the suspect was shot and killed by police at another resort. From my experience of dealing with security incidents in South Africa, I know that the best way to fight crime is on a macro level: Governments and in some extreme cases residents associations and business associations. -- nroets@gmail.com (WT-en) Nic 13:45, 6 July 2011 (EDT)

I also think it was good that you got rid of the specific hotel mention. Saying "Don't ever stay at this hotel" is a very strong statement and 2 incidents at a hotel by the same person (who was later shot dead) is not enough reason to label a specific hotel as being SO unsafe that we have to name it. (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus 14:54, 6 July 2011 (EDT)

Currently it isn't clear whether the Zanzibar article focuses on the main island in the Zanzibar archipelago, or on the entire archipelago (75 islands)[edit]

Swept in from the pub

I'm currently working on the expansion of the parallel article on the Hebrew Wikivoyage because I noticed this is a main tourist destination for Israelis these days.

While working on translating content to Hebvoy I noticed that the Engvoy Zanzibar article has a main problem - it is currently unclear if the creator of the article intended it to focus on the entire Zanzibar archipelago (which consists of 75 islands) or only on the main island of the archipelago.

On the one hand, the intro clearly states "....Zanzibar is semi-autonomous archipelago off the coast of....", but on the other hand, the map shown in the article is only of the main island of the archipelago, but on the other hand the Wikipedia link in the sidebar sends the readers to a Wikipedia article about the entire Zanzibar archipelago, but on the other hand the majority of the content is only about stuff in the main island AND we have a separate article about the second biggest island in the archipelago, AND in our main Tanzania regions map only the main island in the Zanzibar archipelago is marked as "Zanzibar".

So what do you think this article should be about - only on the main island, or on the entire archipelago? ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 21:35, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like our Zanzibar article only covers the main island. The lede of the article mentions (and links to) Pemba Island as another part of the archipelago, but for purposes of the breadcrumb hierarchy Pemba is covered in an entirely different region of Tanzania, namely Pembwe and the Southeast. I think some copyedits ought to be made to the Zanzibar article to clarify this point. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:43, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The article does indeed currently seem to be mostly about the main island of the Zanzibar archipelago, nevertheless, it seems to me that when tourists talk about "Zanzibar" they mostly refer to the entire entire archipelago (for example, see the "Zanzibar" article in Wikipedia), and therefore I currently tend to prefer that we'll fix this article so that it would be about the entire Zanzibar archipelago (by merging the content of the article Pemba Island into this article + fixing the rest of the issues I mentioned above). What do you guys think of that option ? ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 21:48, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It seems sensible to me for there to be some kind of article about the whole archipelago, in view of its historical importance and separate identity before the merger with Tanganyika to form Tanzania. Whether it makes more sense to breadcrumb Pemba and an article concentrating on Zanzibar Island to an island about the whole archipelago or have an archipelago article as an extra-region, though, I really don't know off the top of my head. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:55, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia article linked suggests that when people refer to "Zanzibar", they're usually talking about just Unguja (the main island). That was my thought as well, before clicking the link. How many of the islands are able to be visited by tourists or likely to be visited by tourists? Making it a region wouldn't make much sense if only two of the islands have things to do/see and attract tourists. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 16:41, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This appears still to be an issue. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:18, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A note on the slave market[edit]

This is a good article, but there is a small error in the slave market section - "the atrocities committed there by the Oman Arab and British slave traders.". The British traded plenty of slaves, but in west Africa - never in Zanzibar (indeed, according to Wikipedia: "The United Kingdom's early interest in Zanzibar was motivated by both commerce and the determination to end the slave trade. In 1822, the British signed the first of a series of treaties with Sultan Said to curb this trade. Under strong British pressure, the slave trade was officially abolished in 1876, but slavery itself remained legal in Zanzibar until 1897").

I will modify this as I think we can all agree it's important to be accurate when describing such atrocities. 2A00:23C7:4890:7701:EC37:B15A:DC36:CD59 10:45, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Replace "Unguja" with "Zanzibar"[edit]

I notice we use "Unguja" on this page and in other pages in order to make a distinction between the two large islands of the Zanzibar archipelago (as discussed above), where Unguja is the main Zanzibar island as opposed to Pemba Island. I don't think we should do this. Unguja is not commonly used, neither locally (outside of official contexts) nor among travellers or local travel providers. If you ask your dhow captain, for example, to take you to "Zanzibar", you will go to the main island; if you ask them to take you to "Pemba", you will go to Pemba Island. In other words, yes, politically Zanzibar the province is organised into the islands as the "Zanzibar" archipelago, but in both the local and traveller lexicon, "Zanzibar" is the common name for the main island. Wikivoyage using "Unguja" is confusing, as it is not (or rarely) used by our travel-oriented audience. Moreover, our hierarchy doesn't even support the distinction currently (and nor should it) – we simply have Zanzibar and Pemba. I propose that we instead use "Zanzibar" to refer to Unguja, "Pemba" to refer to Pemba, and in the rare cases that we have to talk about the political entity we use "Zanzibar Province" or "Zanzibar Archipelago". Brycehughes (talk) 08:58, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all. I updated the page. Brycehughes (talk) 05:31, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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