The Digo (Wadigo in Swahili) are a Bantu ethnic and linguistic group based near the Indian Ocean coast between Mombasa in southern Kenya and northern Tanga in Tanzania. In 1994 the Digo population was estimated to total 305,000, with 217,000 ethnic Digo living in Kenya and 88,000 (1987 estimate) in Tanzania. Digo people, nearly all Muslims, speak the Digo language, called Chidigo by speakers, a Bantu language.

The Mijikenda, whose name means "the nine kaya" or "nine cities," is made up of nine peoples, including the Digo. The Mijikenda share many cultural traits and speak mutually understandable languages. They made the decision to go by the name Mijikenda when they formed the cooperative political organization known as the Mijikenda Union in the late 1940s in coastal Kenya. The Digo have resided in the Kenyan coast's plains and hinterland ridges south of Mombasa and in Tanzania north of Tanga since the fifteenth and sixteenth century. The Digo in Tanzania are the native inhabitants of the Mkinga and Tanga districts of Tanga Region and are the major cultural group there.

Until the early 20th century, the Digo maintained their prosperous trade with the nearby Swahili communities during the colonial era. Due to Zanzibar's rising economic stature and the Digo people's tight ties to Swahili towns in the second half of the nineteenth century, it was possible for individuals to amass riches and power, frequently through affiliations. The Digo had previously dominated trade between the shore and the interior, but they eventually lost it to the Swahili and Arabs who were part of the expanding Zanzibari Sultanate. Later, the potency of this economic dependence on Zanzibar was undermined by colonialism.

Due to constant famines caused by the British occupation, the practice of enslaving nieces or nephews by the Digo in exchange for food or payment was abolished at the start of World War One. The colonial government forbade the enslavement of minors throughout the first decade of the 20th century in an effort to dismantle debt networks and end slavery. Both the industry along the coast and the settlers in Kenya's highlands had a significant demand for labor. The colonial government implemented taxation and land access restrictions in order to produce a labor force that would be required to work for pay. The Digo were compelled to supply warriors to fight for Britain against Germany in neighboring Tanzania during the First World War.

Due to the Kenyan Digo's proximity to the Tanzanian border, the British put more pressure on them to provide labor for the war against the Germans. But even after the Digo acceded to these requests, the British refused to recognize a mjomba's ability to enlist his nephews in the military. They demanded the sending of sons rather than the nephews that their maternal uncles had sent. This demand actually and visibly altered the father's control over his kids.

Through Islam and colonization, the father took over the mjomba's responsibilities and authority, including childrearing, paying for marriage and divorce, and having the authority to give away children as desired. The colonial government significantly strengthened Islamic conceptions of family by giving the father authority that had previously only been given to the mjomba. This put into question men's duties and rights towards their sisters and offspring, which posed problems for Digo kinship systems as a whole.

Arguments over matrilineal and patrilineal inheritance, which are centered on proving one's affiliation with particular communities, reflect the shifting kinship relationships in inheritance patterns. As a result, the colonial attempt to regulate access to land as well as other components of Digo culture, such as individual power, upset ideas about kinship, law, and identity with ramifications for gender. The more individual conception of land and person under Islamic law was at variance with Digo concepts of clan land, in addition to altering authority within the family.

The Digo are Muslim, unlike other Mijikenda peoples, and they have expressed and continue to express social continuity through ideas of matrilineal kinship and the persistence of matri-clans over time. There is only one group of named matri-clans among the Digo, known as fuko. The fuko plays a crucial part in defining people's identities and providing the idiom by which membership in Digo society is claimed or demonstrated. Digo people believe that paternal lineage links are important, despite the fact that maternal clan relationships are the most significant kinship ties. The Digo distinguish between the fuko, the family of the mother, and the mbari, the family of the father. Digo began converting to Islam in the early 19th century. Islam soon spread further among the Digo and the majority were Muslim by the 1940s. This process involved close economic contacts with coastal Muslim traders and the use of Muslim healers who also acted as religious teachers. The conversion of elders and other influential leaders in the community had a significant impact for the future spread of the religion among the Digo.