Kunta Kinteh Island lies in the Gambia River, roughly 30 kilometres upstream from the river mouth, near the villages of Juffureh and Albreda. Its position in the waterway made it strategically important to people seeking to control trade and movement between the Atlantic coast and the interior. The island is now part of the UNESCO property officially called Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites. That wider listing is essential: the heritage story is not confined to one ruined fort, but extends across river settlements and defensive sites that illuminate several centuries of contact between African communities and European powers.
The island was known as James Island during British rule and earlier as St Andrew’s Island. In 2011, UNESCO approved a change in the World Heritage property’s name to Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites. The new name recalls the Gambian figure made internationally familiar through Alex Haley’s book and television adaptation Roots, while the site itself remains a historical place with evidence that must be considered independently of literary representation. For visitors, holding those threads apart is valuable: the island carries local and diasporic memory, but its documented history is also about trade, imperial rivalry, resistance and the Atlantic slave system.