São Tomé and PríncipeSão Tomé e Príncipe

The two islands are the peaks of the Cameroon Line, a chain of volcanoes running from Mount Cameroon south-west into the Atlantic. São Tomé rises to 2,024 m at Pico de São Tomé; Príncipe, about 150 km to the north-east, is older, smaller and more eroded. Volcanic plugs such as Pico Cão Grande, a 300 m spire, stand out of the forest where softer rock has worn away.

The equator passes over Ilhéu das Rolas off São Tomé's southern tip. Trade winds bring heavy rain to the south and west — some of the wettest places in Africa — while the north-east lies in a rain shadow with dry savannah and baobabs. The main dry season, gravana, runs roughly June to September.

Isolation produced a remarkable number of endemic species for such small islands: birds such as the São Tomé grosbeak and the giant sunbird, orchids, begonias, frogs and giant land snails. Obo Natural Park protects much of the primary forest on São Tomé, and all of Príncipe has been a UNESCO biosphere reserve since 2012. Green, hawksbill, olive ridley and leatherback turtles nest on the beaches, and humpback whales pass offshore.

Portuguese navigators found the islands uninhabited around 1470–71. Settlement began in 1493 with convicts and, notoriously, about two thousand Jewish children taken from their parents in Portugal, most of whom died. Enslaved Africans, mainly from the Kingdom of Kongo and the Bight of Benin, were brought to clear forest and grow sugar.

By the mid-16th century São Tomé was one of the world's leading sugar producers and a hub of the Atlantic slave trade, supplying captives to Brazil and elsewhere. Revolts were frequent; in 1595 an enslaved man named Amador led an uprising that briefly controlled much of the island, and he is now a national hero. The Angolares, a community on the south coast said to descend from shipwrecked or runaway Africans, kept their own language and way of life.

Competition from Brazil, raids and revolts ruined the sugar economy in the 17th century. Many Portuguese left, and a class of free people of mixed descent, the Forros, came to own land and dominate island society for two centuries.

In the 19th century Portuguese planters brought coffee and then cocoa, took land from the Forros and built roças: self-contained estates with a big house, drying sheds, railway lines, hospitals and rows of workers' quarters (sanzalas). By around 1908 São Tomé and Príncipe was the world's largest cocoa producer.

The labour came from Angola, Mozambique and Cape Verde under 'contracts' that were slavery in all but name: workers were rarely allowed to go home. Investigations by the journalist Henry Nevinson and others led the chocolate makers Cadbury, Fry's and Rowntree's to boycott São Tomé cocoa in 1909, one of the first international campaigns over supply chains. Descendants of these workers, known as Tongas, form part of the population today.

The roças were nationalised after independence and declined. Many are now villages where families live in the old buildings, some are being restored as guesthouses, and a few small producers make fine chocolate from island cocoa. Roça Sundy on Príncipe has another claim to fame: there, on 29 May 1919, Arthur Eddington photographed a solar eclipse that confirmed Einstein's general theory of relativity.

In February 1953 the colonial governor, trying to force Forros to work on the roças, unleashed a wave of killings known as the Batepá massacre; hundreds died. The date, 3 February, is now Martyrs' Day, and the massacre fed the nationalism of the MLSTP, the liberation movement that organised from exile in Gabon.

After Portugal's 1974 revolution, the islands became independent on 12 July 1975 under Manuel Pinto da Costa and the MLSTP, which ruled as a single party with Eastern-bloc ties and nationalised the roças. Many Portuguese left, and cocoa production collapsed.

In 1990–91 the country adopted multiparty democracy, and power has since changed hands through elections many times. Coup attempts in 1995 and 2003 were short-lived, and one in November 2022 was foiled, with deaths in custody that drew criticism. Governments rise and fall often; offshore oil, shared in a joint zone with Nigeria, has so far brought more hope than revenue.

Santomean society grew from several streams: the Forros, descended from freed slaves and early settlers, speaking Forro (Santome); the Angolares of the south coast, with their own creole and fishing traditions; the Tongas, descendants of contract labourers; Cape Verdeans who came as workers; and people from Príncipe, speaking Lung'ie. Portuguese is the common language.

Catholicism, brought early, blends with African beliefs in spirits and healing, and religious festivals mark the year. The most famous cultural form is tchiloli, a street drama based on a 16th-century Portuguese play about Charlemagne's court, performed by masked actors in European court costume with drums and flutes, and reinterpreted as a story about justice. On Príncipe, the Auto de Floripes, another Charlemagne tale, fills the streets of Santo António each August.

Music ranges from traditional socopé and puíta dances to modern Portuguese-language pop, and the islands' painters and sculptors — often working in roça studios — have built a small art scene. The motto of daily life is leve-leve: easy, easy.

The island kitchen rests on what grows and swims: breadfruit (fruta-pão), plantain (banana-pão), cassava, taro and palm oil, and fish landed each morning. Calulu, the national dish, stews smoked fish or chicken for hours with a dozen leaves and herbs gathered from the forest edge; it is Sunday and festival food.

Grilled fish with breadfruit, octopus in tomato, molho no fogo and izaquente, a stew of African breadfruit seeds, fill everyday plates. Giant land snails (búzio do mato) are a forest delicacy. Portuguese influence shows in bread, feijoada and sweets.

Cocoa and coffee are everywhere, and small producers have made the islands known for fine chocolate. Palm wine is tapped each morning; cacharamba is the cane spirit; Rosema is the local beer. Chefs working at the roças have shown how far local produce can go.