Mauritius

Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about 2,000 kilometres (1,100 nautical miles) off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Agaléga, and St. Brandon (Cargados Carajos shoals). The island of Mauritius along with nearby Réunion (a French overseas department), are part of the Mascarene Islands. The main island of Mauritius, where the population is concentrated, hosts the capital and largest city, Port Louis. The country spans 2,040 square kilometres (790 sq mi) and has an exclusive economic zone covering 2,300,000 square kilometres (670,000 square nautical miles).Based on verbal accounts from Portuguese travellers and explorers and the 1502 Cantino planisphere (a purloined Portuguese map), Arab traders in the Indian Ocean may have been among the first to discover and name the uninhabited island, around 975 AD, as Dina Arobi. In 1507, Portuguese sailors blown off course from the Madagascar channel on their way to India visited the uninhabited island naming it Cirne ('cisne' or 'swan' in modern day Portuguese), Ilha do Cerne on 16th Century Portuguese maps. A Dutch fleet, under the command of Admiral Van Warwyck, landed at what is now the Grand Port District and took possession of the island in 1598, renaming the uninhabited islands after Maurice, Prince of Orange. A succession of short-lived Dutch attempts at permanent settlement took place over a century with the aim of setting up a Batavia-bound ship refuelling station, exploiting the local ebony forests and establishing long term sugar and arrack production from Java sugar cane plants using over three hundred Malagasy slaves, before finally abandoning Mauritius for the Cape of Good Hope. France took the uninhabited island in 1715, renaming the island "Isle de France". In 1810, the United Kingdom seized the island, and four years later, under the Treaty of Paris, France ceded Mauritius and its dependencies including St. Brandon and the Outer Islands to the United Kingdom. The British colony of Mauritius now included Rodrigues, Agaléga, St. Brandon, the Chagos Archipelago, and, until 1906, the Seychelles. Mauritius and France dispute sovereignty over the island of Tromelin, as the treaty failed to mention it specifically. Mauritius became the British Empire's main sugar-producing colony and remained a primarily sugar-dominated plantation-based colony until independence, in 1968.In 1965, the UK split off the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritian territory to create the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). The local population was forcibly expelled and the largest island, Diego Garcia, was leased to the United States. On 25 February 2019, the judges of the International Court of Justice by thirteen votes to one, stated that the United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible.Given its geographic location and colonial past, the people of Mauritius is diverse in ethnicity, culture, language and faith. It is the only country in Africa where Hinduism is the most practised religion. Indo-Mauritians make up the bulk of the population with significant Creole, Sino-Mauritian and Franco-Mauritian minorities. The island's government is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system with Mauritius highly ranked for economic and political freedom being listed by the Economist's Democracy Index as the only country in Africa with full democracy. Mauritius is the only African country with a very high Human Development Index, and the World Bank classifies it as a high-income economy. It is amongst the most competitive and most developed economies located close to the African continent. The government provides free universal healthcare, free education up through the tertiary level and free public transportation for students, senior citizens, and the disabled. Mauritius is consistently ranked as the most peaceful.Along with the other Mascarene Islands and, especially the Cargados Carajos shoals, Mauritius is known for its biodiverse flora and fauna and its endemism. The main island is known for the demise of the dodo, which, along with several other avian species, became extinct soon after human settlement. Other endemic animals, such as the echo parakeet, the Mauritius kestrel and the pink pigeon, have survived and are subject to intensive and successful conservation efforts.