Mauritius

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General Overview of Mauritius

Mauritius is an island state in the Indian Ocean, located 868 kilometres East of Madagascar and 172 kilometres East-Northeast of Reunion. The country consists of the main island of Mauritius as well as Rodrigues Island, which is located 560 kilometres East of Mauritius’ coast. The more distant islands of Agaléga and Saint-Brandon are also part of the country’s national territory. The total area of ​​Mauritius spans 2,040 km². The capital and largest city is Port-Louis. Mauritius was a former Dutch (1638-1710) and French (1715-1810) colony, before becoming a British colonial possession in 1810 which remained under British rule until 1968, the year of its independence. The British colony of Mauritius once included the present-day territories of Mauritius, Rodrigues, Agaléga, Saint-Brandon, the Chagos archipelago and the Seychelles. The Mauritian territories were gradually reduced with the creation of a specific colony of the Seychelles in 1903 and the excision of the Chagos archipelago in 1965.[1]

The population of Mauritius is multiethnic, multiconfessional, multicultural and multilingual. The three official languages ​​of Mauritius are English, Creole and French. However, many Mauritians also speak Tamil, Hindi, Urdu, Chinese, and other languages due to the diverse origins of the Mauritian population. Mauritius is highly rated in terms of democracy and economic and political freedoms. Mauritius' Human Development Index is the highest in Africa. Similar to the other Mascarene Islands, Mauritius is known for its flora and fauna, with several species endemic to the country. The island is particularly famous for the dodo, a flightless bird, which along with other endemic species, became extinct soon after the arrival of the first colonists in the 17th century.[2]

Historians believe that the first visitors to Mauritius were Phoenician navigators commissioned by the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II, around the year 600 BC. Arab sailors visited Mauritius regularly from the fifth century and gave it the name of Dina Arobi. It was not until the beginning of the 16th century that Portuguese navigators began to regularly visit the region. The Portuguese first settled there in 1507 and established a visiting base.[3] The island appears on the earliest Portuguese maps, with the Portuguese name of Ilha do Cirne, “Island of the Swan,” possibly due to the presence of the dodo, which was found in large numbers around this time. Another Portuguese sailor, Pedro de Mascarenhas, gave the name Mascareignes to the archipelago of islands now known as Mauritius, Rodrigues and Reunion. The island remained uninhabited until the establishment of a colony in 1638 by the United Provinces, the Dutch naming it in honour of Maurice de Nassau, Prince of Orange. It was abandoned for lack of passage of traders in 1710 and five years later, the island became a French colony and was renamed Isle de France. Due to its strategic position, the island was nicknamed "the star and the key" of the Indian Ocean, which became and remains the island’s motto.