Zanzibar is an insular semi-autonomous region which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, 25–50 km (16–31 mi) off the coast of the African mainland, and consists of many small islands and two large ones: Unguja and Pemba Island. The capital is Zanzibar City, located on the island of Unguja. Its historic centre, Stone Town, is a World Heritage Site.
Pemba Island is a Tanzanian island forming part of the Zanzibar Archipelago, lying within the Swahili Coast in the Indian Ocean.
The Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) was a Socialist, African nationalist Zanzibari political party formed between the mostly Shirazi Shiraz Party and the mostly African Afro Party.
Abeid Amani Karume was the first President of Zanzibar. He obtained this title as a result of a revolution which led to the deposing of Sir Jamshid bin Abdullah, the last reigning Sultan of Zanzibar, in January 1964. Three months later, the United Republic of Tanzania was founded, and Karume became the first Vice President of the United Republic with Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika as president of the new country. He was the father of Zanzibar's former president, Amani Abeid Karume.
The Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP) was a nationalist and conservative Arab-dominated political party in Zanzibar. The ZNP, in a coalition with the African-dominated Zanzibar and Pemba People's Party (ZPPP), governed the island from 1961 to 1964.
The Zanzibar Revolution began on 12 January 1964 and led to the overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar and his mainly Arab government by the island's majority Black African population.
John Gideon Okello was a Ugandan revolutionary and the leader of the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964. This revolution overthrew Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah and led to the proclamation of Zanzibar as a republic.
The Sultanate of Zanzibar, also known as the Zanzibar Sultanate, was an East African Muslim state controlled by the Sultan of Zanzibar, in place between 1856 and 1964. The Sultanate's territories varied over time, and after a period of decline, the state had sovereignty over only the Zanzibar Archipelago and a 16-kilometre-wide (10 mi) strip along the Kenyan coast, with the interior of Kenya constituting the British Kenya Colony and the coastal strip administered as a de facto part of that colony.
Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu was a Zanzibar-born Marxist and pan-Africanist nationalist who played an important role in the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution and served as a minister under Julius Nyerere after the island was merged with mainland Tanganyika to form Tanzania. He was jailed by Nyerere from 1972 and, after his release following an international campaign, remained a vocal critic of imperialism, authoritarian states and excessively statist development models.
The flag of Zanzibar was adopted on 9 January 2005. It is a horizontal tricolour of blue, black, and green with the national flag of Tanzania in the canton.
The Umma Party was a socialist political party in Zanzibar. It was founded in 1963 by disaffected socialist Arabs from the ruling Zanzibar Nationalist Party. It was led by Abdulrahman Muhammad Babu and supported the Afro-Shirazi Party during the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution. Babu was made Minister of External Affairs following the revolution. The party merged into the Afro-Shirazi Party on 8 March 1964.
The Shirazi also known as Mbwera, are a Bantu ethnic group inhabiting the Swahili coast and the nearby Indian ocean islands. They are particularly concentrated on the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba and Comoros.
General elections for the Legislative Council were held in Zanzibar for the first time in July 1957. It was largely a contest between the Afro-Shirazi Union and the Zanzibar Nationalist Party, with the ASU and its supporters winning five of the six contested seats. They were also the first elections to be held in East Africa.
General elections were held in Zanzibar on 17 January 1961 for the Legislative Council. The result saw the Afro-Shirazi Party win ten seats, the Zanzibar Nationalist Party nine, and the Zanzibar and Pemba People's Party three.
General elections were held in Zanzibar on 1 June 1961, following the inconclusive elections in January. One further constituency, Mtambile, was created on the island of Pemba, with the hope that this would break the deadlock. The Zanzibar Nationalist Party and the Afro-Shirazi Party both won ten seats, despite the fact that the ASP had received just over 50% of the votes and the ZNP only 35%. The other three seats were won by the Zanzibar and Pemba People's Party three. The ZNP and ZPPP formed a coalition government.
General elections were held in Zanzibar in July 1963. The number of seats was increased from 22 to 31, and the result was a victory for the Zanzibar Nationalist Party and Zanzibar and Pemba People's Party alliance, which won 18 seats, despite the fact that the Afro-Shirazi Party, which had won 13, claimed 54.2% of the vote. Voter turnout was estimated to be 99.1%.
The People's Republic of Zanzibar was a short-lived African state founded in 1964, consisting of the islands of the Zanzibar Archipelago. It existed for less than six months before it merged with Tanganyika to create the "United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar", which would be renamed the United Republic of Tanzania in November of that year.
Zanzibari independence is a political ambition of some political parties, advocacy groups, and individuals of Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous region territory within Tanzania, to become an independent sovereign state.
In January 1964 during and following the Zanzibar Revolution, Arab residents of Zanzibar were targeted for violence by the island’s majority Black African population. Arabs were mass murdered, raped, tortured and deported from the island by Black African militiamen under the Afro-Shirazi Party and Umma Party. The exact death toll is unknown, although scholarly sources estimate the number of Arabs killed to be between 13,000 and more than 20,000. It has been described by some as an act of genocide.
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