The Coast Province () was one of

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

's eight

provinces A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...

prior to 2010. It covered the entire country's coastline on the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

. Its capital city was

Mombasa Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital status in 1907. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...

. It was inhabited by the Mijikenda and Swahili peoples, among others. The province covered an area of 79,686.1 km².

Tourist attraction

Some of the province's important towns included Kilifi,

Malindi Malindi is a town on Malindi Bay at the mouth of the Sabaki River, lying on the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya. It is 120 kilometres northeast of Mombasa. The population of Malindi was 119,859 as of the 2019 census. It is the largest urban centr ...

, Watamu and Lamu in the north, and Mwandimu and Magunda in the south. Some of the coastal population was located in resort and beach settlements such as Kiongwe and Kipini. Diani Beach was one of the province's major tourist centres, with palm trees and white sandy beaches like Mombasa.

is where

Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama ( , ; – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and nobleman who was the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India, first European to reach India by sea. Da Gama's first voyage (1497–1499) was the first to link ...

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 The Yongle Emperor (2 May 1360 – 12 August 1424), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Chengzu of Ming, personal name Zhu Di, was the third List of emperors of the Ming dynasty, emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigning from 1402 to 142 ...

and the expeditions of

Zheng He Zheng He (also romanized Cheng Ho; 1371–1433/1435) was a Chinese eunuch, admiral and diplomat from the early Ming dynasty, who is often regarded as the greatest admiral in History of China, Chinese history. Born into a Muslims, Muslim famil ...

. Watamu is a small fishing community and contains East Africa's first marine national park, the Watamu Marine National Park.

Population data

The Coast Provinces had a population of 3,325,307 in 2009.

Climate

The climate is designated as Aw in the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system.