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Location: Eastern Africa, group of islands in the Indian
Ocean, northeast of Madagascar
Geographic coordinates: 4 35 S, 55 40 E
Map references: Africa
Area:
total: 455 sq km
land: 455 sq km
water: 0 sq km
Area - comparative: 2.5 times the size of Washington, DC
Land boundaries: 0 km
Coastline: 491 km
Maritime claims:
continental shelf: 200 nm or to the edge of the continental
margin
exclusive economic zone: 200 nm
territorial sea: 12 nm
Climate: tropical marine; humid; cooler season during southeast
monsoon (late May to September); warmer season during northwest
monsoon (March to May)
Terrain: Mahe Group is granitic, narrow coastal strip, rocky,
hilly; others are coral, flat, elevated reefs
Elevation extremes:
lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 m
highest point: Morne Seychellois 905 m
Natural resources: fish, copra, cinnamon trees
Land use:
arable land: 2%
permanent crops: 13%
permanent pastures: 0%
forests and woodland: 11%
other: 74% (1993 est.)
Irrigated land: NA sq km
Natural hazards: lies outside the cyclone belt, so severe
storms are rare; short droughts possible
Environment - current issues: water supply depends on catchments
to collect rain water
Environment - international agreements:
party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification,
Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping,
Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Whaling
signed, but not ratified: Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol
Geography - note: 40 granitic and about 50 coralline islands
Geography
Seychelles is located west of the Indian Ocean, north of Madagascar
and east of Mombasa, Kenya. This jewel in the Indian Ocean is an
isolated archipelago, compromising about 115 beautiful islands.
Climate
The climate is mostly tropical marine, humid; with two main seasons:
Dry Season: cool season, from May to October.
Wet Season: warm season, from November to April.
The transition periods of April and October are fairly hot, with
little breeze and calm seas. Seychelles has a mean maximum temperature
ranging around 29 degrees Celsius and experience 12 hours of daylight.
Seychelles is an African country that consists of about
90 islands in the Indian Ocean. The islands are scattered over 1,035,995
square kilometres. They lie about 1,600 kilometres east of the African
mainland.
Seychelles has a total land area of 455 square kilometres
and a population of about 75,000.
The largest island, Mahe, covers 153 square kilometres. Approximately
85 per cent of the population lives on Mahe.
Most of the rest of the people live on the next largest islands,
Praslin and La Digue. Many of the smaller islands
are uninhabited. Victoria, on Mahe, is the nation's capital, chief
port, and only town. It has a population of about 24,000.
Seychelles was ruled by the United Kingdom from 1814 until
1976, when it became independent. The country's basic unit of money
is the rupee.
A lengthy struggle between France and Great Britain for the islands
ended in 1814, when they were ceded to the latter. Independence
came in 1976. Socialist rule was brought to a close with a new constitution
and free elections in 1993
Seychelles
COUNTRY
Formal Name: Republic of Seychelles.
Short Name: Seychelles.
Term for Citizens: Seychellois.
Capital: Victoria.
Date of Independence: June 29, 1976 (from Britain).
GEOGRAPHY
Size: Approximately 444 square kilometers.
Topography: Archipelago consists of 115 islands,
of which some forty are granitic, within ninety kilometers of Mahé,
and remainder coralline, stretching over 1,200 kilometers from northeast
to southwest. Major islands are Mahé, Praslin, and La Digue. Granitic
islands have hills up to 940 meters high, some narrow coastal plains,
and coral reefs on east coasts. Coralline islands are flat with
no fresh water.
Climate: Tropical with high humidity but breezy.
Cooler weather brought by southeast monsoon from late May to September;
northwest monsoon from March to May brings warmer weather. Mean
average annual rainfall in Mahé 2,880 millimeters at sea level and
3,550 millimeters on slopes.
Data as of August 1994
Seychelles
PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
The archipelago consists of 115 islands and thirty prominent rock
formations scattered throughout a self-proclaimed exclusive economic
zone (EEZ--see
Glossary) of more than 1.35 million square kilometers of ocean (see
fig. 7). Some forty islands
are granitic and lie in a ninety-kilometer radius from Mahé, the
main island. The remaining islands are coralline, stretching over
a 1,200-kilometer radius from Île aux Vaches in the northeast to
the Aldabra Atoll in the southwest. The islands are all small--
the aggregate land area is only 444 square kilometers, about twoand
-a-half times the size of Washington, D.C.
Mahé is twenty-five kilometers long and no more than eight kilometers
wide. It contains the capital and only city, Victoria, an excellent
port. Victoria lies approximately 1,600 kilometers east of Mombasa,
Kenya; 2,800 kilometers southwest of Bombay; 1,700 kilometers north
of Mauritius; and 920 kilometers northeast of Madagascar. The only
other important islands by virtue of their size and population are
Praslin and La Digue, situated about thirty kilometers to the northeast
of Mahé.
The granitic islands are the peaks of the submarine Mascarene Plateau,
a continental formation theorized to be either a part of Africa
separated when Asia began to drift away from the original single
continent of Gondwanaland, or the remnants of a microcontinent that
existed up to the beginning of the Tertiary Period, approximately
50 million years ago. The granitic islands are characterized by
boulder-covered hills and mountains as high as 940 meters rising
abruptly from the sea. Elsewhere, narrow coastal plains extend to
the base of the foothills. Extensively developed coral reefs are
found mainly on the east coasts because of the southwest trade winds
and equatorial current. Ninety-nine percent of the population is
located on the granitic islands, and most are on Mahé.
The coralline islands differ sharply from the granitic in that
they are very flat, often rising only a few feet above sea level.
They have no fresh water, and very few have a resident population.
Many, like Île aux Vaches, Île Denis, the Amirante Isles, Platte
Island, and Coetivy Island are sand cays upon which extensive coconut
plantations have been established. Some of the coralline islands
consist of uplifted reefs and atolls covered with stunted vegetation.
Several of these islands have been important breeding grounds for
turtles and birds, as well as the sites of extensive guano deposits,
which formerly constituted an important element of the Seychellois
economy but now for the most part are depleted. Aldabra Islands,
the largest coralline atoll with an area greater than Mahé, is a
sanctuary for rare animals and birds.
The uniqueness of the Seychelles' ecology is reflected in the US$1.8
million project of the Global Environment Trust Fund of the World
Bank (see Glossary) entitled Biodiversity Conservation and Marine
Pollution Abatement, that began in 1993. The World Bank study for
this project states that the islands contain, out of a total of
1,170 flowering plants, "at least seventy-five species of flowering
plants, fifteen of birds, three of mammals, thirty of reptiles and
amphibians, and several hundred species of snails, insects, spiders
and other invertebrates" found nowhere else. In addition, the waters
contain more than 900 kinds of fish, of which more than one-third
are associated with coral reefs. Specific examples of unique birds
are the black paradise flycatcher, the black parrot, the brush warbler,
and a flightless rail.
As a result of extensive shipping to Seychelles that brings needed
imports and the discharge of commercial tuna fishing, the waters
are becoming polluted. Furthermore, goats brought to Aldabra Islands
are destroying much of the vegetation on which giant turtles, including
two species unique to Seychelles--the green and the hawksbill--feed
or seek shade.
Seychelles began addressing the conservation problem in the late
1960s by creating the Nature Conservancy Commission, later renamed
the Seychelles National Environment Commission. A system of national
parks and animal preserves covering 42 percent of the land area
and about 26,000 hectares of the surrounding water areas has been
set aside. Legislation protects wildlife and bans various destructive
practices. In Seychelles' 1990-94 National Development Plan, an
effort was made to include in the appropriate economic sectors of
the development plan environment and natural resources management
aspects.
Also connected with ecology is a World Bank project dealing with
the environment and transportation. Launched in 1993 with a loan
of US$4.5 million, it is designed to improve the infrastructure
of Seychelles with regard to roads and airports or airstrips so
as to encourage tourism as a source of income, while simultaneously
supporting environmental programs in resource management, conservation,
and the elimination of pollution.
The climate of Seychelles is tropical, having little seasonal variation.
Temperatures on Mahé rarely rise above 29 C. or drop below 24 C.
Humidity is high, but its enervating effect is usually ameliorated
by prevailing winds. The southeast monsoon from late May to September
brings cooler weather, and the northwest monsoon from March to May,
warmer weather. High winds are rare inasmuch as most islands lie
outside the Indian Ocean cyclone belt; Mahé suffered the only such
storm in its recorded history in 1862. Mean annual rainfall in Mahé
averages 2,880 millimeters at sea level and as high as 3,550 millimeters
on the mountain slopes. Precipitation is somewhat less on the other
islands, averaging as low as 500 millimeters per year on the southernmost
coral islands. Because catchment provides most sources of water
in Seychelles, yearly variations in rainfall or even brief periods
of drought can produce water shortages. Small dams have been built
on Mahé since 1969 in an effort to guarantee a reliable water supply,
but drought can still be a problem on Mahé and particularly on La
Digue.
Data as of August 1994
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