Postage stamps and postal history of Zanzibar Postage stamps and postal history of Zanzibar This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Zanzibar. Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous part of the United Republic of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises most of the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. The islands were once governed by the Zanzibar Sultanate, a sovereign state with a long trading history within the Arab world. In 1964 it united with Tanganyika to form Tanzania. Any Indian stamps or covers used in Zanzibar between 1854 and 1876 are rare. A post office under Indian administration provided postal services from late
History of Zanzibar sons struggled over the succession. On April 6, 1861, Zanzibar and Oman were divided into two separate principalities. Sayyid Majid bin Said Al-Busaid (1834/5–1870), his sixth son, became the Sultan of Zanzibar, while the third son, Sayyid Thuwaini bin Said al-Said, became the Sultan of Oman. Accounts by visitors to Zanzibar often emphasize the outward beauty of the place. The British explorer Richard Francis Burton described Zanzibar in 1856 as: "Earth, sea and sky, all seemed wrapped in a soft and sensuous repose...The sea of purist sapphire, which had not parted with its blue rays to the atmosphere...lay looking...under a