MauritiusMaurice

Mauritius rose from the sea floor as a volcano about 8 million years ago. Erosion left the jagged peaks of Le Pouce, Pieter Both and Le Morne round a central plateau, and a fringing coral reef encloses most of the coast in a shallow lagoon, which is why the island's beaches are calm while the reef line breaks white offshore.

Isolated from mammals, the island evolved giant tortoises, flightless birds and dense ebony forests. The dodo, a large flightless pigeon, was gone by about 1680, within a century of Dutch settlement, killed off by hunting and by the rats, pigs and monkeys ships brought. It became the world's shorthand for extinction.

Less than 2 per cent of native forest survives, mainly in Black River Gorges. Conservation work since the 1970s rescued the Mauritius kestrel, pink pigeon and echo parakeet from a handful of birds, and restored islets such as Île aux Aigrettes and Round Island now act as arks.

The Dutch named the island after Prince Maurice of Nassau in 1598, logged its ebony and gave up in 1710. France took over in 1715, called it Île de France and founded Port Louis as a naval base. Under governor Mahé de La Bourdonnais in the 1730s and 1740s it became a sugar and shipping colony worked by enslaved people from Madagascar, Mozambique and West Africa.

French corsairs raided British ships from Port Louis during the Napoleonic wars until Britain captured the island in 1810. The surrender terms let the French planters keep their land, laws, language and religion, which is why French is still the language of newspapers and the Franco-Mauritian families still own much of the sugar land.

Britain abolished slavery in 1835 and paid compensation to owners, not to the enslaved. To replace their labour, planters turned to indenture.

Before abolition, enslaved people who escaped (maroons) hid in the forests and on the cliffs of Le Morne Brabant in the south-west. Oral tradition says some leapt from the mountain rather than be recaptured. UNESCO lists Le Morne as a cultural landscape of resistance, and 1 February marks the abolition of slavery there.

From 1834 to 1920 about 460,000 indentured workers, mostly from India, passed through the immigration depot at Aapravasi Ghat in Port Louis. Britain used Mauritius as the test case for a system later copied across its empire, from Fiji to Trinidad. Contracts were harsh and wages low, but many labourers stayed, bought land and became the majority.

Chinese traders, mostly Hakka, arrived in the same period and opened shops in every village. Together these movements produced today's population: Indo-Mauritians, Creoles of African and Malagasy descent, Sino-Mauritians and Franco-Mauritians.

Mauritius became independent on 12 March 1968 after tense elections and riots between communities. Many predicted failure for a crowded sugar island with no resources. Instead governments built export processing zones for textiles, a tourism industry and then offshore finance, and the country grew into one of Africa's richest by income per head.

Politics revolves around a few parties and families, notably the Ramgoolams and the Jugnauths, with coalitions formed across communities. Elections have changed governments peacefully many times; in 2024 Navin Ramgoolam's alliance won a landslide.

Before independence Britain separated the Chagos Archipelago and expelled its population so the US could build a base on Diego Garcia. Chagossians and Mauritius fought this for decades; the International Court of Justice gave an advisory opinion against the UK in 2019, and in 2025 the two governments signed a treaty transferring sovereignty while leasing Diego Garcia back (ratification and implementation — check).

About half the population is Hindu, a quarter Christian (mostly Catholic) and around 17 per cent Muslim, with Buddhists and others. Festivals of every faith are public holidays, and neighbours join each other's celebrations.

Maha Shivaratri is the largest: in February or March, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims dressed in white walk to Grand Bassin, a crater lake held sacred as linked to the Ganges, carrying decorated arches called kanwars. Tamil Thaipoosam Cavadee brings processions of devotees with pierced skin; Divali lights up houses in autumn.

Père Laval, a French missionary who worked among freed slaves, is venerated at his shrine in Sainte-Croix, and thousands walk there each September. Chinese New Year fills Port Louis Chinatown with firecrackers.

Mauritian Creole, based on French with words from Malagasy, Bhojpuri, English and Portuguese, is the language almost everyone shares. It gained official status in schools only recently and is now written in a standard spelling.

Sega began as the music of enslaved people, played on the ravanne frame drum, the maravanne rattle and the triangle, with songs of hardship and satire. Traditional sega is on UNESCO's intangible heritage list; seggae mixed it with reggae in the 1980s through Kaya, who died in police custody in 1999, sparking riots.

The kitchen is the clearest map of history: Indian dholl puri and curries, Creole rougaille and vindaye, Chinese noodles and dumplings, French bread and pastries. Lunch is often from a van by the sea or a stall outside Port Louis market.