Seychelles

The Seychelles had no human population before France claimed the islands in 1756 and settled them 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 lost the election of September and October 2025 to Patrick Herminie of United Seychelles — René's old party — who took office on 26 October 2025, a second peaceful handover in five years. Seychelles has the highest income per head and the highest Human Development Index ranking in Africa, on the strength of luxury tourism and tuna, and is a leader in ocean conservation: it issued the world's first sovereign "blue bond" in 2018 to fund marine protection, committed to protecting 30 per cent of its exclusive economic zone, and sets aside around 42 per cent of its territory for conservation.

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, celebrated with 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 more visitors each year than there are residents, and tuna, landed and canned in 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. Since February 2026 the war between Iran and the United States and Israel has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and, since September, the Bab al-Mandab at the mouth of the Red Sea, and unsettled oil prices, aviation and tourism worldwide, which tells on a country that imports almost everything and flies its visitors in.

Seychellois cooking is Creole, built on fish, rice, and coconut. Grilled or fried fresh fish — bourzwa, the red snapper, above all, and fish or octopus curry rich with coconut milk, are the everyday dishes, served with rice and often a lentil dal.

Ladob, plantain, sweet potato or breadfruit cooked in coconut milk with sugar, nutmeg and vanilla, is eaten as a dessert, and a salted-fish version of the same dish as a savoury one; shark chutney (satini reken), mashed with lime and bilimbi juice, is another speciality. Tropical fruit is abundant, and the local drinks are bakka rum, kalou (palm wine), and Seybrew and Eku beers.

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 Victoria has its botanical gardens, the Selwyn-Clarke market, and a clocktower modelled on London's Little Ben.

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.