Bawe Island is a small island in the

Zanzibar Archipelago The Zanzibar Archipelago ( ar, أرخبيل زنجبار, sw, Funguvisiwa la Zanzibar) consists of several islands lying off the coast of East Africa south of the Somali sea. The archipelago is also known as the Spice Islands. There are four ...

, in

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

. It is located about offshore

Stone Town Stonetown of Zanzibar ( ar, مدينة زنجبار الحجرية), also known as Mji Mkongwe ( Swahili for "old town"), is the old part of Zanzibar City, the main city of Zanzibar, in Tanzania. The newer portion of the city is known as Ng'ambo ...

, the capital of Zanzibar on the island of

Unguja Unguja (also referred to as "Zanzibar Island" or simply "Zanzibar", in grc, Μενουθιάς, Menuthias – as mentioned in The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'') is the largest and most populated island of the Zanzibar archipelago, in Tanza ...

. At the end of the 18th century,

sultan Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it ...

Barghash ibn Sa'id of Zanzibar gave the island to the

Eastern Telegraph Company Cable & Wireless plc was a British telecommunications company. In the mid-1980s, it became the first company in the UK to offer an alternative telephone service to British Telecom (via subsidiary Mercury Communications). The company later offer ...

, that used it as an operation station for the underwater telegraph cable connecting Zanzibar to

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, V ...

and

Aden Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. ...

. This agreement was extended by sultan Khalifa ibn Sa'id in 1889, in favor of Cable & Wireless, that also built houses on the island to accommodate their personnel. Nowadays, Bawe is solely a

tourist Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mo ...

destination.

Footnotes

Islands of Zanzibar Zanzibar Archipelago Uninhabited islands of Tanzania {{Tanzania-geo-stub