The exact age of Malindi is not clear. The existing records suggest that it may go back as far as the 9th century A.D. it is not clear who the first residents were. There is also debate as to whether the Arabs predated the Chinese in their visit to Malindi. What is clear is that the Chinese did come at some point because their pottery has been discovered in several sites excavated along the coast. The Arabs came in the 13th century and loved it. They stayed. The Chinese retuned in the 15th Century. When they came, they found a sophisticated society that relied on fishing, trade and agriculture.

The 3rd Sultan of Zanzibar, Barghash bin Said, ruled from 1870 until 1888

In 1492 Vasco Da Gama was welcomed to Malindi. At the time, the town had a population of about 6000 secured by a coral wall. He erected a monument crowned by a Christian cross. The monument was removed and it was subsequently relocated to its current location by Portuguese Monks in the 16th Century. Malindi continued to prosper until the 17th Century when it went into decline. In 1662 the Omani Arabs ransacked Malindi and it fell out of eminence. Agriculture and slave trade continued on a limited scale until 1861 when the Sultan of Zanzibar rebuilt it and posted an officer of the Imperial British Company to oversee his Estates. When the British declared Kenya a protectorate, Malindi and the rest of the Kenyan coast remained under the influence of the King of Zanzibar.

After the First World War, Malindi generated a lot of renewed interest with European Settlers establishing their holiday homes. In the early 1930’s Palm Beach Hotel (now Blue Marline) was build followed by the Lawfords Hotel. Malindi continued to prosper as a choice holiday destination for the Kenyan European Settler population. Before independence in 1962 the 10 mile Coastal strip was leased from the Sultan of Zanzibar by the British government. When Kenya gained its independence from the British therefore, Malindi had established itself as a choice holiday destination.

The recent history of Malindi is a tale of the waning settler influence replaced by the Germans who entrenched themselves in the late 1960s until the late 1980s when the Italians discovered Malindi to become the dominant foreign influence. Today most of the Hotels dotting the coast of Malindi are owned and managed by Italians.