Ibo Island Architecture

Ibo Island is zoned for World Heritage Status and supports some of the oldest buildings in Mozambique. As early as AD600 Arab traders had established contact with Ibo Island and subsequently established fortified trading posts, and forts along the coastline. Via these trading posts slaves, gold and ivory were shipped to the Arab world.

Fort of São João Batista

Built in 1791 by the Portuguese Ibo's iconic star-shaped, pentagonal fort is the most recognizable structure on Ibo. It is the island’s most potent symbol. Walking through the fort you can't help but feel the history in the air as you walk from one darkened room to the next, where the slaves were housed. Inside the forts biggest room you hear how every night the slaves were forced to sleep standing up by means of water being hosed onto the floor. Inside one of the smaller cells it is written on the wall that those who are imprisoned will not leave alive. Nowadays the Fort of São João Batista (St John the Baptist) is occupied by the silversmiths, and tourists who come to visit one of Mozambique oldest forts.

Ibo Island Buildings

Portuguese, Dutch, Indians, Arabs and the Chinese all had a hand in the houses and buildings on Ibo. You need to see them to believe them. Trees growing out of structures, walls of limestone crumbling, most houses have the front door and courtyard at the back of the house. The building themselves share a story at first glance in the ghostly streets of what used to be the island’s wealthy areas, which are lined with the hollow shells of houses that were abandoned overnight when the post-independence government effectively expelled all “foreigners” in 1975.