Coast Province (Swahili: Pwani) of Kenya, along the Indian Ocean, is one of Kenya's seven administrative provinces outside Nairobi. It comprises the Indian Ocean coastal strip with the capital city at Mombasa and is inhabited by the Mijikenda and Swahili, among others. The province covers an area of 83,603 km² and has a population of 2,487,264 inhabitants (1999 census).
Other important towns on the coastal strip include Diani in the South, and Kilifi, Malindi, Watamu and Lamu in the North. Part of coastal population located in such popular resort and beach settlements as Kiongwe, Kipini, etc.
Diani Beach is now also a tourist center, with palm trees and the white sandy beaches like Mombasa.
Malindi is where Vasco da Gama picked up his pilot to navigate with the monsoon winds to India; Mambrui appears to be the site where contact occurred with the Chinese during the era of the Yongle Emperor and the expeditions of Zheng He.
Watamu is a small fishing community and East Africa's first Marine National Park.
Mwandimu is a settlement in the south of the province.
Read more about Coast Province: Climate, Districts, Separatism
Famous quotes containing the words coast and/or province:
“Beyond this island bound
By a thin sea of flesh
And a bone coast ...”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Female Virtues are of a Domestick turn. The Family is the proper Province for Private Women to Shine in. If they must be showing their Zeal for the Publick, let it not be against those who are perhaps of the same Family, or at least of the same Religion or Nation, but against those who are the open, professed, undoubted Enemies of their Faith, Liberty, and Country.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)