Lagos–Mombasa Highway Lagos–Mombasa Highway The Lagos–Mombasa Highway (also known as the "Mombasa-Lagos Highway") is Trans-African Highway 8 and is the principal road route between West and East Africa. It has a length of and is contiguous with the Dakar-Lagos Highway with which it will form (when complete) the longest east-west crossing of the continent for a total distance of Part of the transcontinental road network under development by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Development Bank (ADB), and the African Union, the route crosses Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Kenya. Although
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