Seychelles

The Seychelles had no human population before the French claimed and settled the islands from 1770, bringing enslaved Africans to work coconut, cotton, and spice plantations. Britain took the islands during the Napoleonic Wars, confirmed control in 1814, and abolished slavery in 1835, later settling "liberated Africans" freed from intercepted slave ships. A dependency of Mauritius until 1903, Seychelles then became a separate British colony.

Independence came in 1976 under James Mancham. The following year his prime minister, France-Albert René, seized power in a coup while Mancham was abroad and ruled for 27 years as a one-party socialist state, surviving a 1981 mercenary invasion attempt foiled at the airport. Multiparty politics was restored in 1993.

In 2020, the opposition candidate Wavel Ramkalawan, an Anglican priest, won the presidency in a peaceful transfer of power, ending 43 years of rule by René's party; he was re-elected in 2025. Seychelles has become one of Africa's highest-income countries, on the strength of luxury tourism and tuna, and a leader in ocean conservation — pioneering a "debt-for-nature" swap and the world's first sovereign "blue bond", and protecting nearly a third of its vast maritime zone.

Seychellois society is Creole — a blend of African, French, British, Indian, and Chinese ancestry with no older layer — and Kreol is the language of home, music, and identity, promoted since 1981 with its own institute and an annual festival. The islands are strongly Roman Catholic, and the church calendar, family, and music shape the social round.

That music is moutya, a slow, sensual drum-and-chant form descended from the songs of enslaved people and now on UNESCO's list, along with the livelier sega and the European-derived kontredans. Craft traditions include weaving from coconut and vacoa palm, and boat-building. The pace is unhurried, hospitality is warm, and the outdoors — the sea, the granite hills, fishing — is central to life.

Almost the entire population lives on the three main granite islands — Mahé, with the small capital Victoria; Praslin; and La Digue — with the coral Outer Islands mostly uninhabited. Incomes are high for the region, and the economy rests on two pillars: high-end tourism, which brings several times as many visitors each year as there are residents, and tuna, landed and canned at one of the world's largest processing plants in Port Victoria.

Offshore financial services and a little agriculture fill out the picture, but Seychelles imports nearly everything, which leaves it exposed to shipping costs, price shocks, and tourism downturns. Coral bleaching, beach erosion, and rising seas are treated as existential threats, and a domestic heroin problem — among the world's highest addiction rates per head — is a serious social challenge.

Seychellois cooking is Creole, built on fish, rice, and coconut. Grilled or fried fresh fish — job, red snapper, bourgeois — with a fiery chilli-and-lime satini, and fish or octopus curry rich with coconut milk, are the everyday dishes, served with rice and often a lentil dal.

Ladob, plantain or breadfruit stewed in sweetened coconut milk, is eaten as a side or a dessert; smoked fish, bat bat fish balls, and shark chutney (satini reken) are traditional specialities. Tropical fruit is abundant, and the local drinks are bacca (a sugarcane spirit), kalou (palm wine), Seybrew beer, and tea grown in the Mahé hills.

The beaches are the draw, and the most famous is Anse Source d'Argent on La Digue, where pink granite boulders the size of houses stand on white sand. Mahé has Beau Vallon and a string of coves, and Praslin has Anse Lazio and Anse Georgette. La Digue is explored by bicycle at ox-cart pace.

Praslin also holds the Vallée de Mai, a UNESCO-listed palm forest that is the last stronghold of the coco de mer, whose double-lobed seed is the largest in the plant kingdom and endemic to just two islands. Mahé's Morne Seychellois National Park covers the forested spine of the main island, with hiking trails and tea plantations, and Victoria has the smallest botanical garden and a bright Hindu temple.

Far to the southwest lies Aldabra, one of the largest raised coral atolls in the world and a World Heritage Site, home to about 100,000 Aldabra giant tortoises in a near-pristine ecosystem — reachable only on rare, expensive expedition trips. Diving and snorkelling on the granitic reefs, and whale-shark encounters off Mahé, round out what the islands offer.