Mombasa Old Town Portuguese Fort Jesus is located in the Old Town, and is Mombasa's most popular tourist attraction. Mombasa Old Town Old Town is an area of Mombasa, Kenya. Situated on the south-east side of Mombasa Island, the Old Town covers an area of , and is inhabited by a mix of local, Arab, Asian, Portuguese and British settlers. In 1997, the Old Town and Fort Jesus were submitted by the National Museums of Kenya for selection in UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites. The area is located to the east of Mombasa Island, adjacent to Tudor Creek. Buildings in the Old
Mombasa Peninsula, the Indian Subcontinent and China. 16th-century Portuguese voyager Duarte Barbosa claimed, "[Mombasa] is a place of great traffic and has a good harbour in which there are always moored small craft of many kinds and also great ships, both of which are bound from Sofala and others which come from Cambay and Melinde and others which sail to the island of Zanzibar." Vasco da Gama was the first known European to visit Mombasa, receiving a chilly reception in 1498. Two years later, the town was sacked by the Portuguese. In 1502, the sultanate became independent from Kilwa Kisiwani and