Comoros

Four islands, three of them a country, and one of the highest coup rates in the world. The archipelago sits in the Mozambique Channel and was settled by Bantu, Austronesian and Arab arrivals, becoming a network of sultanates trading across the Indian Ocean and speaking Comorian, a Swahili language written for centuries in Arabic script. France annexed the islands in the 1880s and administered them from Madagascar. In the 1974 referendum three islands voted for independence and Mayotte voted to stay French; the Comoros declared independence over the whole archipelago in 1975 and still claims Mayotte, which became a French department in 2011. What followed was extraordinary political instability - around twenty coups or attempts since independence, several organised by the French mercenary Bob Denard, who installed and removed governments repeatedly over three decades. Anjouan and Moheli seceded in 1997 and were brought back by an African Union force in 2008 under a rotating presidency between the islands. Ylang-ylang distilled here supplies much of the world's perfume industry, and vanilla and cloves follow. The coelacanth, thought extinct for sixty-five million years, was found in these waters. Moroni is the capital. The country has about 850 thousand people. Comorian, Arabic and French are all official. Karthala on Grande Comore is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. A very large Comorian population lives in France and remittances are a major part of the economy. It is among the poorest countries in the world by income per head. Its flag carries four stars for the four islands, including the one it does not govern.

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