Mondo Knows Facts
Kilwa grew wealthy on gold from the interior
A Swahili port on the Tanzanian coast minted coins and built a great coral mosque Kilwa Kisiwani dominated trade in gold from Sofala, in modern Mozambique, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Its merchants built the Great Mosque and the Husuni Kubwa palace from coral rag and lime, and the sultan issued his own copper coins. Ibn Battuta visited in 1331 and called it one of the finest towns he had seen. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Tags: kilwa, swahili, gold-trade
Kilwa grew wealthy on gold from the interior: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- A Swahili port on the Tanzanian coast minted coins and built a great coral mosque. The figure is taken from UNESCO World Heritage Centre, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a history fact?
- Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.