Arabuko Sokoke was proclaimed a Crown Forest and gazetted in 1943. Part of the forest was gazetted as a strict nature reserve in the late 1960s. The reserve lies a few kilometers inland, between the towns of Kilifi and Malindi, 110 km north of Mombasa. It is the largest existing fragment of the tropical forests that covered much of the East African coast and is an important habitat for endemic/endangered birds, insects and mammal species.