The Mafia Channel is a strait in the

Pwani Region Pwani Region (''Mkoa wa Pwani'' in Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions. The word "''Pwani''" in Swahili means the "''coast''". The regional capital is the town of Kibaha. The Region borders the Tanga Region to the north, M ...

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 ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

Geography

The Mafia Channel stretches in a roughly north/south direction between the Rufiji River

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

and

Mafia Island Mafia Island (Kisiwa cha Mafia) is an island and district of Pwani Region, Tanzania. The island is the third largest in Tanzanian ocean territory, but is not administratively included within the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar, which has been ...

. The

deltas A river delta is a landform shaped like a triangle, created by deposition of sediment that is carried by a river and enters slower-moving or stagnant water. This occurs where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, or (more rarel ...

at the mouth of the Rufiji River extrude towards the

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

and

water Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...

is forced through, causing constant

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is dis ...

of the deltas and the

itself. The small and narrow Bwejuu Island is located in the middle of the channel.

References

Rufiji River Mafia Island Straits of Africa Bodies of water of Tanzania {{PwaniTZ-geo-stub