The island of Pemba, known as Al Jazeera Al Khadra (the green island) in Arabic, is an island forming part of the Zanzibar archipelago, lying off the east coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. Pemba is situated about 50 kilometres to the north of the Unguja (the island proper of Zanzibar). In 1964 Zanzibar was united with the former colony of Tanganyika to form Tanzania. It lies 50 kilometres east of mainland Tanzania, across the Pemba Channel. Together with Mafia Island (south of Zanzibar), these three islands form the Spice Islands . In 1988, the estimated population was 265,000, with an area of 980 km².
Most of Pemba Island, which is hillier and more fertile than Zanzibar, is dominated by small scale farming. There is large scale farming of cash crops such as cloves — there are over 3 million clove trees.
