Pangani (Mji wa Pangani, in Swahili) is a historic town and capital of Pangani District in the Tanga Region of Tanzania. The town lies 45 km (28 mi) south of the city of Tanga, at the mouth of the Pangani River in which the town is named after. Administrately the town Pangani is situated within two wards, Pangani Mashariki and Pangani Magharibi. The town is currently the largest settlement in Pangani District and is a major tourist attraction in Tanga region and is a home to Muhembo, a Tanzanian National Historic Site.

The first people to live in Pangani Bay were hunter-gatherers during the Palaeolithic era. They fashioned tools out of quartz river pebbles by hammering them with simple, forceful blows. Southwest of Bweni, the escarpment is covered in debris from the production and usage of stone tools. Lithic artefacts from more recent sites show that populations that used iron for agriculture continued to use (or even went back to) stone technologies after making the shift to an agricultural lifestyle, occasionally employing rare raw materials from upriver. By 600–1000 C.E., if not earlier, farming villages using iron began to appear in the region. They created TIW and dwelt near the Pangani River or atop escarpments with a view of the waterway. The famring peoples of Pangani Bay were the Bondei and Zigua.

Early TIW found close to Kumbamtoni resembled coastal pottery from the southern and central parts of the Swahili coast. Such pottery are accompanied with more than 20 disc beads made of sea shells in Kumbamtoni. Along the river bank, there are also a few Maore Ware sherds that come from the interior of the continent. At sites in Pangani Bay, there is no indication of foreign ceramics from before 1000 C.E., such as Sasanian Islamic variations. However, the discovery of a purported Roman ceramic (or Indic copy) points to communication with the larger Indian Ocean in the first millennium C.E.

During the Swahili era (1250–1550 CE), interactions between indigenous tribes of the Pangani coast and communities in the Indian Ocean took place, but at a minor level. Thus, the "Golden Age" of the Swahili (1250/1350-1550 C.E., but especially the earlier centuries within this range) influenced littoral settlers in northeastern Tanzania, although not nearly to the extent felt at Kilwa on the southern Swahili coast (where the gold trade flourished 1200-1350 C.E.) or at Mombasa and Malindi in Kenya. Late in this era, Tongoni as well as Swahili towns on Tanga Island (in the bay near Tanga Town) with monumental Swahili architecture began to grow in importance.

Archaeologists have also found the remains of small 15th century Swahili settlements on the bluffs just north of Pangani at Muhembo, According to the research, Pangani Bay's first inhabitant's Zanjian traditions served as the cradle of later Swahili culture. From the Zanjian to the Swahili periods, local people continued to practise the majority of their pottery, trading, and culinary practises. Minor alterations are also discernible, most likely due to ongoing interactions with bordering groups along the shore. From the Zanjian to the Swahili periods, pottery with comparable form and ornamentation was employed.

Shellfish evidence reveals patterns of food collecting by the first inhabitants and the kinds of foods that were consumed, suggesting both change and continuity. The discovery of Sasanian Islamic wares from the Persian Gulf during the Zanjian period and black-and-yellow ceramics from the Red Sea during the Swahili eras is evidence of the old maritime trade history in Pangani Bay. The pottery in Zanjian and Swahili villages in Pangani Bay shared characteristics with that of sites on the East African coast (Shanga, Kilwa, and Kaole), as well as its hinterland (Mombo), in addition to the recognised internal cultural continuity. Such evidence suggests that the people of Pangani Bay are still connected to other communities in East Africa on a regional level.

The southern Swahili coast (south of Tanga Town) is thought to have developed a different tradition from the northern coast (from Mombasa to the Lamu Archipelago in Kenya) before 1250 C.E. Due to a shift in Islamic influence (from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea) that brought people together and encouraged settlement growth and expansion, the northern shore dominated the economy during this time. on this model, resurrected leadership anchored on Islamic doctrine, iconography, and emulation increased trade monopolies and sparked close ties with other groups in the Indian Ocean through trade. During this time, it is likely that a rigid, emic idea of the African hinterland developed as wealthy coastal Swahili town dwellers (waungwana) saw the need to set themselves apart from people who lived in the interior in order to consolidate their authority and safeguard expanding trade monopolies.

Surface investigations revealed 18 Swahili sites, including Mnyongeni, Mtakani, and Kumbamtoni (1250–1550 C.E.). Villagers in Muhembo and Tongoni were constructing coral structures and going to mosques for prayer by 1400 C.E. These were the two biggest towns in their respective regions at the time. Other community members (from Muhembo and Tongoni) resided in distant wattle-and-daub homes. Foreign contacts, which may be seen in the archaeological record in the form of Asian ceramics and glass beads, had a significant impact on the formation of identity borders. For example, 62 of 81 (75.3%) of the beads found during excavations at these sites—92 of 108 (85.2%) at Muhembo (Site 37 in Survey Unit 4); and Tongoni—are of foreign (glass) provenance. Among other things, locals created iron tools, textiles, nonglass beads, and ceramics.