Seychelles

A hundred and fifteen islands with no original population, the smallest African state, and the wealthiest by income per head. The granitic inner islands are fragments of an ancient continent rather than volcanic or coral, which is geologically unusual and explains species found nowhere else, including the coco de mer, whose seed is the largest of any plant. France claimed the uninhabited islands in 1756 and brought settlers and enslaved Africans to grow spices and cotton; Britain took them in 1814 and administered them from Mauritius until 1903. Abolition in 1835 and the later landing of Africans freed from intercepted slave ships shaped the creole population. Independence came in 1976 and a coup the following year installed France-Albert Rene, who ran a one-party socialist state for sixteen years, survived a mercenary attempt in 1981 in which the attackers arrived disguised as a rugby team, and reintroduced multiparty politics in 1993. Tourism and tuna licensing now carry the economy. Around half the land is protected, the highest share of any country. Aldabra's giant tortoises number more than those of the Galapagos. Victoria is the capital. The country has about a hundred thousand people, the smallest population in Africa. Seychellois Creole, English and French are all official. The Vallee de Mai and Aldabra are World Heritage sites. Most of the population lives on Mahe. Piracy from Somalia disrupted its fishing and tourism for several years after 2008. The country issued the world’s first sovereign blue bond in 2018 to fund marine conservation.

MyHistorian
A causal knowledge graph of history