50 Fun Facts About Seychelles

How many islands make up the Republic of Seychelles?

The constitution names 155 and seven more have been reclaimed since; the great majority are uninhabited nature reserves.

What is the capital and largest city of Seychelles?

It sits on the northeast of Mahe about 1,500 km east of mainland Africa; eight districts make up Greater Victoria.

Seychelles holds what double distinction among African sovereign states?

About 100,600 people lived there in 2022, yet it has Africa's highest per-capita GDP and Human Development Index.

What is Seychelles' largest island, home to the capital?

It covers 157 square kilometres and held 77,000 people at the 2010 census; Praslin is second largest.

The inner islands of Seychelles are unusual among oceanic islands because they are made mostly of what?

They sit on a submerged microcontinent once wedged between India and Madagascar; Alfred Wegener cited them as evidence for continental drift.

Which Portuguese fleet's crew first recorded the Seychelles on 15 March 1503?

Thome Lopes made the sighting from Rui Mendes de Brito's ship; the islands stayed uninhabited for another 250 years.

Seychelles is named after Jean Moreau de Sechelles, who held what post in France?

Captain Morphey laid a Stone of Possession on Mahe in 1756 and the islands became part of the colony of Isle de France, now Mauritius.

How did French administrator de Quinssy respond when a Royal Navy frigate arrived at Mahe in 1794?

The islands stayed nominally French until Britain took Isle de France in 1810; the French planters were then allowed to keep their land.

Seychelles became independent from the United Kingdom in which year?

James Mancham was the first president; the 1970s islands were 'a playground for film stars and the international jet set'.

Who seized power in a 1977 coup and ruled Seychelles as a one-party strongman until 1993?

He was prime minister at the time and stepped down only in 2004 in favour of James Michel.

Mike Hoare's 1981 mercenaries tried to enter Seychelles disguised as what?

A gun battle broke out at the airport and most of the 43 South Africans escaped on a hijacked Air India plane.

Which country's navy sailed into the capital's port in 1986 to avert a coup, in Operation Flowers are Blooming?

Defence minister Ogilvy Berlouis had plotted against the president; the frigate Vindhyagiri answered his call.

Wavel Ramkalawan, elected in 2020 as the first opposition president since 1977, had what profession?

He beat Danny Faure 54.9 to 43.5 percent, ending 43 years of rule by one party.

Roughly what share of Seychelles' territory is set aside for conservation?

It ranked first of 172 countries on the 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index with a perfect 10.

Aldabra atoll, a UNESCO site, is home to how many giant tortoises?

Pirates and sailors ate them almost to extinction between 1500 and the mid-1800s; today they survive only on the atoll.

Aldabra is the world's second-largest coral atoll after which Pacific island?

A scientific outcry, the 'Aldabra Affair', stopped a planned military base and led to its protection.

The coco de mer palm, which grows wild on only two islands, is famous for producing what?

The 'love nut' can weigh 25 to 45 kilograms; its suggestive shape earned it the nickname.

The Vallee de Mai, a World Heritage Site of coco de mer palms, is on which island?

It is Seychelles' second-largest island and also home to the Seychelles black parrot.

Which strange, ancient plant found in only a few spots on Mahe is a genus all of its own?

Some 70 of the granitic islands' 268 flowering plants are endemic; the crab genus Seychellum is unique to them too.

What is the most widely spoken native language of Seychelles?

About 91 percent speak the French-based creole; English and French are co-official and business is done in English.

How many official languages does Seychelles have?

French, English and Seychellois Creole; the creole is related to those of Mauritius and Reunion.

Seychelles' flag, adopted in 1996, is unique for what design?

Blue, yellow, red, white and green take the colours of the two main political parties; it is the third flag since independence.

What is Seychelles' currency?

It was unpegged from a currency basket and floated in 2008 to attract foreign investment.

Which industry, launched by the 1971 airport opening, employs three in ten Seychellois?

Agriculture, once the plantation mainstay, now employs about 3 percent.

Which slave-era dance was added to UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2021?

Danced to drums at beach bazaars, it blends folk rhythms with Kenyan benga; sega and kontredans are the other favourites.

According to the 2022 census, what share of Seychellois are Catholic?

Anglicans make up 5 percent; the population descends from African, French, Indian and Chinese immigrants, since no one lived there before.

Seychelles is divided into how many administrative regions?

Eight form Greater Victoria, 14 cover rural Mahe, two divide Praslin, one covers La Digue and one the Outer Islands.

In 2014 Seychelles had the world's highest rate of what, at 799 per 100,000 people?

That meant just 735 actual prisoners; the rate had fallen to 287 per 100,000 by 2022.

Seychelles has been a key participant in fighting piracy committed mainly by whom?

Ex-president Michel said piracy cost 4 percent of GDP in lost boats, fishing and tourism.

Which mountain, in the national park of the same name on Mahe, is the highest peak in Seychelles?

Rainfall on the mountain slopes reaches 3,600 mm a year against 2,900 mm in the capital.

Which two coral sand cays lie north of the granitic islands on the edge of the Seychelles Bank?

Coetivy and Platte lie to the south; the Amirantes, Farquhar and Aldabra groups form the far-flung Outer Islands.

Which Seychelles island hosts the granitic group's largest seabird colonies?

Aldabra and Cosmoledo in the outer islands hold some of the largest colonies on Earth; sooty terns breed too.

Seychelles was ranked what in Transparency International's 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index?

V-Dem also rates it Africa's top liberal democracy.

What share of Seychelles' land area do the 44 inner islands hold, along with almost all of the people?

Forty-two of them are granitic and two coralline, totalling 244 square kilometres.

The Seychelles microcontinent split off during the breakup of which supercontinent?

Interaction with the Reunion hotspot after Madagascar separated from India broke off the block.

Seychelles imports about three times the oil it needs. What happens to the surplus?

The UAE supplied about 83 percent of refined petroleum imports in 2023; no oil has ever been found in local waters.

Coral bleaching in which year damaged most of Seychelles' reefs?

Spearguns and dynamite fishing were banned in the 1960s, so the fish are unafraid of divers; Silhouette's reefs have recovered well.

What was Seychelles' first plantation-era export trio?

In the 1960s a third of workers were still on plantations; the US ran a satellite tracking station on Mahe from 1963.

How many white settlers did the 1770 French landing on Ste Anne island bring?

The ship Thelemaque under Captain Leblanc Lecore founded the first permanent settlement.

Which class of person, of French origin, dominated Seychelles' economy and politics under British rule?

Britain let the French upper class keep its land; slavery was banned in 1835 and Indian indentured labourers followed.

Seychelles belongs to which regional bloc alongside the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion?

It also belongs to the African Union, SADC, the Commonwealth and La Francophonie.

Which nearby capital is Mahe about 1,550 km from, according to the geography of the Somali Sea?

Kenya lies about 1,600 km to the west and Madagascar to the southwest.

What is the most popular sport in Seychelles?

The islands hosted the African Beach Soccer Championship in 2015 and a FIFA beach event a decade later.

Which FIFA tournament did Seychelles host in May 2025, the first time it had been staged in Africa?

It came exactly ten years after the country hosted the African Beach Soccer Championship in 2015.

Who was the first president of independent Seychelles, ousted in the 1977 coup?

In the 1970s the islands were a jet-set playground; the coup leader France-Albert René wanted to 'keep Seychelles for the Seychellois'.

Which 1814 peace settlement formalised British control of Seychelles?

British forces had taken over in practice after invading Isle de France, today's Mauritius, in December 1810.

Graduates of the University of Seychelles, opened in 2009, receive degrees awarded from which city?

The university was set up across three sites to slow a brain drain of students leaving to study overseas.

Which German scientist cited the granite of Seychelles as evidence for continental drift?

The islands sit on a submerged granite block that was sandwiched between Madagascar and India before Gondwana broke apart.

Seychellois shark chutney is boiled, mashed shark cooked with lime and the juice of which fruit?

Bilimbi is a sour relative of the starfruit; the chutney is finished with fried onion and spices.

The mercenary who led the 1981 Air India hijack from Seychelles had served in which unit?

German mercenary D. Clodo was later tried for air piracy in both South Africa, where he was acquitted, and Germany.