Coast Province

Coastal Province of Kenya, along the Indian Ocean, is one of Kenya's seven administrative provinces outside Nairobi. It comprises the Indian Ocean coastal strip with the capital city at Mombasa and is inhabited by the Mijikenda and Swahili, among others. This province covers an area of 83,603 square kilometers and features a population of 2,487,264 inhabitants.

Other important towns along the coastal strip include Diani in the South, and Malindi, Watamu and Lamu in the North. Diani Beach is now also a tourist center, with palm trees and the white sandy beaches like Mombasa. Malindi is where Vasco da Gama 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 and the expeditions of Zheng He.