Seychelles: Map & History

History

Seychelles was uninhabited throughout most of recorded history, although simulations of Austronesian migration patterns indicate a good probability that they visited the islands. Tombs visible until 1910 at Anse Lascars on Silhouette Island have also been conjectured to belong to later Maldivian and Arab traders visiting the archipelago. Vasco da Gama and his 4th Portuguese India Armada discovered the Seychelles on 15 March 1503; the first sighting was made by Thomé Lopes aboard Rui Mendes de Brito. Da Gama's ships passed close to an elevated island, probably Silhouette Island, and the following day Desroches Island. Later, the Portuguese mapped a group of seven islands and named them The Seven Sisters.

Economy

During the plantation era, cinnamon, vanilla and copra were the chief exports. In 1965, during a three-month visit to the islands, futurist Donald Prell prepared for the crown colony's Governor General an economic report containing a scenario for the future of the economy. Quoting from his report, in the 1960s, about 33% of the working population worked at plantations, and 20% worked in the public or government sector. The Indian Ocean Tracking Station on Mahé used by the United States' Air Force Satellite Control Network was closed in August 1996 after the Seychelles government attempted to raise the rent to more than $10,000,000 per year.

Since independence in 1976, per capita output has expanded to roughly seven times the old near-subsistence level.

Culture

The National Art Gallery was inaugurated in 1994 on the occasion of the official opening of the National Cultural Centre on 18 June 1994, which houses the National Library and National Archives along with other offices of the Ministry of Culture. At its inauguration, the Minister of Culture decreed that the exhibition of works of Seychellois artists, painters and sculptors was "a testimony to the development of art in Seychelles as a creative form of expression", providing a view of the state of the country's contemporary art.

Geography

An island nation, Seychelles is located in the Somali Sea segment of the Indian Ocean, northeast of Madagascar and about 1,600 km (860 nmi) east of Kenya. The Constitution of Seychelles lists 155 named islands, and a further 7 reclaimed islands have been created subsequent to the publication of the Constitution. The majority of the islands are uninhabited, with many dedicated as nature reserves. Seychelles' largest island, Mahé, is located 1,550 km (835 nmi) from Mogadishu (Somalia's capital).

Seychelles sits atop a large submerged granite block known as the Seychelles microcontinent, which was sandwiched between Madagascar and India before the breakup of Gondwanaland.