diff --git a/docs/c-api.rst b/docs/c-api.rst
index a1f964113c..2a9297ad23 100644
--- a/docs/c-api.rst
+++ b/docs/c-api.rst
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ the C-equivalent methods as the Python API wraps this API.
 
 The main area of difference is, unlike the Python API, the C API doesn't do any
 decoding, encoding or schema validation of :ref:`sec_metadata` fields,
-instead only handling the byte sting representation of the metadata. Metadata is therefore
+instead only handling the byte string representation of the metadata. Metadata is therefore
 never used directly by any tskit C API method, just stored.
 
 ----------------------