Mauritius

An island that was empty when Europeans found it and is now among the most mixed societies on earth. Arabs and Portuguese knew it, the Dutch settled briefly and left, having exterminated the dodo and introduced sugar cane and rats, France held it as Ile de France from 1715 and built Port Louis, and Britain took it in 1810 and kept the French language, law and landowners. Sugar ran on enslaved African and Malagasy labour until abolition in 1835, after which planters imported indentured workers from India on a scale that changed the island permanently - around half a million people passed through the Aapravasi Ghat depot, and their descendants are about two-thirds of the population. Independence came in 1968, with predictions of ethnic conflict and economic failure that did not happen. The country diversified from sugar into textiles, tourism and financial services and now has among the highest incomes in Africa and an unbroken record of democratic transfers. The Chagos Islands were detached before independence to create a US base at Diego Garcia and their people expelled; Britain agreed to return the archipelago in 2024. Creole is the common language. Port Louis is the capital. The country has about 1.3 million people in two thousand square kilometres. English is the language of law and Parliament while French dominates the media. Hindus are the largest religious group, unusual in Africa. The island has no indigenous population and no fresh water problem of the usual kind. It ranks first in Africa on most governance indices.

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