Lazare Picault (fl. mid-18th century) was a French explorer known for his exploration of islands in the Seychelles. [1] Although Arab, Portuguese and British sailors visited the Seychelles prior to Picault, he was the first to do any extensive exploration.
In 1742 on an expedition of exploration of the Indian Ocean, Picault discovered the largest island of the Seychelles which he named L’Île d’Abondance (Isle of Abundance). [2] Also a smaller island to the east he called Ste. Anne Island, named after Saint Anne's Day (the date of his landing there).
In 1744 he returned to the Seychelles and renamed the largest island Mahé [2] after Mahé de La Bourdonnais, the governor of Réunion and Mauritius, who was in charge of the mission. He also named the entire island group, Iles de la Bourdonnais. This was changed to Sechelles in 1756, in honor of French Minister of Finances, Jean Moreau de Séchelles.
In 1744 Picault also explored several other islands in the archipelago, including:
Today on the island of Mahé there are several locales named after him. A bay, beach, village, administrative district and tourist hotel are all called Baie Lazare.
Seychelles, officially the Republic of Seychelles, is an island country and archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, Victoria, is 1,500 kilometres east of mainland Africa. Nearby island countries and territories include the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and the French overseas departments of Mayotte and Réunion to the south; and Maldives and the Chagos Archipelago to the east. Seychelles is the smallest country in Africa as well as the least populated sovereign African country, with an estimated population of 100,600 in 2022.
Seychelles is a small island country east of the African continent located in the Sea of Zanj due north of Madagascar, with Antsiranana as its nearest foreign city. Seychelles lies between approximately 4ºS and 10ºS and 46ºE and 54ºE. The nation is an archipelago of 155 tropical islands, some granite and some coral. the majority of which are small and uninhabited. The landmass is only 452 km2 (175 sq mi), but the islands are spread wide over an exclusive economic zone of 1,336,559 km2 (516,048 sq mi). About 90 percent of the population of 100,000 live on Mahé, 9 percent on Praslin and La Digue. Around a third of the land area is the island of Mahé and a further third the atoll of Aldabra.
Bertrand-François Mahé, comte de La Bourdonnais was a French naval officer and colonial administrator, in the service of the French East India Company.
Isle de France was a French colony in the Indian Ocean from 1715 to 1810, comprising the island now known as Mauritius and its dependent territories. It was governed by the French East India Company and formed part of the French colonial empire. Under the French, the island witnessed major changes. The increasing importance of agriculture led to the "import" of slaves and the undertaking of vast infrastructural works that transformed the capital Port Louis into a major port, warehousing, and commercial centre.
Mahé is the largest island of Seychelles, with an area of 157.3 square kilometres (60.7 sq mi), lying in the northeast of the Seychellois nation in the Somali Sea part of the Indian Ocean. The population of Mahé was 77,000, as of the 2010 census. It contains the capital city of Victoria and accommodates 86% of the country's total population. The island was named after Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, a French governor of Isle de France.
Praslin is the second largest island (38.5 km2) of the Inner Seychelles, lying 44 km (27 mi) northeast of Mahé. Praslin has a population of around 7,533 people and comprises two administrative districts: Baie Sainte Anne and Grand' Anse. The main settlements are the Baie Ste Anne, Anse Volbert and Grand' Anse.
La Digue is the third most populated island of the Seychelles, and fourth largest by land area, lying east of Praslin and west of Felicite Island. In size, it is the fourth-largest granitic island of Seychelles after Mahé, Praslin, and Silhouette Island. It has a population of 2,800 people. Most of the inhabitants live in the west coast villages of La Passe and Anse Réunion. There is no airport on La Digue, so to get there from a foreign country, one must fly to Victoria and continue by ferry, usually via Praslin. It has an area of 10.08 km2, making it relatively easy to travel by bike or on foot.
Frégate Island is an island in Seychelles. The island is the easternmost of the granitic Inner Islands of the Seychelles. It is 2.07 square kilometres and is primarily known for the Oetker Collection's secluded private luxury resort which funds an environmental programme to restore habitat and protect rare species. The beach on the island, Anse Victorin, often voted as "The World's Best Beach" by The Times.
The Granitic Seychelles are the islands in Seychelles which lie in central position on the Seychelles Bank and are composed of granite rock. They make up the majority of the Inner Islands, which in addition include the coral islands along of the rim of the Seychelles Bank, namely Bird Island and Denis Island. The Granitic Seychelles contrast with the Coralline Seychelles or the Outer Islands, several island groups made up of low coral islands with dry, infertile soils.
The wildlife of Seychelles comprises the flora and fauna of the Seychelles islands off the eastern coast of Africa in the western Indian Ocean.
Tourism is the most important nongovernment sector of Seychelles' economy. About 15 percent of the formal work force is directly employed in tourism, and employment in construction, banking, transportation, and other activities is closely tied to the tourist industry. Tourists enjoy the Seychelles' coral beaches and opportunities for water sports. Wildlife in the archipelago is also a major attraction.
Articles related to Seychelles include:
The history of Seychelles dates back to the fourth of the Portuguese India Armadas led by Vasco da Gama, though Seychelles was likely already known to Arab navigators and other sailors for many centuries. On 15 March 1503, the scrivener Thomé Lopes noted the sighting of an elevated island, doubtless one of the granitic islands and almost certainly Silhouette Island. The first recorded landing was by the men of the English East India Company ship Ascension, which arrived in Seychelles in January 1609.The islands were claimed by France in 1756. Seychelles remained uninhabited until the first settlers arrived on board the ship Thélemaque, which arrived on 27 August 1770. Captain Leblanc Lecore landed the first colonists, comprising 15 white men, eight Africans and five Indians. The Seychellois Creole language developed as a means of communication between the different races. The British frigate Orpheus commanded by Captain Henry Newcome arrived at Mahé on 16 May 1794. Terms of capitulation were drawn up and the next day Seychelles was surrendered to Britain. Following the fall of Mauritius to British forces, Captain Phillip Beaver of the Nisus arrived at Mahé on 23 April 1811 and took possession of Seychelles as a permanent colony of Britain. The Seychelles became an independent republic in 1976. Following a coup d'état, a socialist one-party state ruled the country from 1977 to 1993. The subsequent democratic Presidential elections were won by candidates of the same party.
Jean-Nicolas Céré was a French botanist and agronomist born on the Indian Ocean Isle de France but educated in Brittany and Paris. On the Isle de France, he was befriended by Pierre Poivre (1719–1786), administrator of the Isle de France and Ile Bourbon (Réunion), who he assisted in the cultivation of spices. When Poivre was recalled to France in 1773, Céré was appointed Director of the Royal Garden at Monplaisir, a position he held from 1775 to the time of his death in 1810.
Parliamentary elections were held for the first in the Seychelles in October 1948. The Seychelles Taxpayers and Producers Association (STPA), which primarily represented the interests of large landowners, won all four seats.
The geology of Seychelles is an example of a felsic granite microcontinent that broke off from the supercontinent Gondwana within the past 145 million years and become isolated in the Indian Ocean. The islands are primarily granite rock, with some sequences of sedimentary rocks formed during rift basin periods or times when the islands were submerged in shallow water.
Seychellois nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of Seychelles, as amended; the Citizenship Act, and its revisions; and various international agreements to which the country is a signatory. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Seychelles. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Nationality describes the relationship of an individual to the state under international law, whereas citizenship is the domestic relationship of an individual within the nation. In Britain and thus the Commonwealth of Nations, though the terms are often used synonymously outside of law, they are governed by different statutes and regulated by different authorities. Seychellois nationality is typically obtained under the principal of jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth in Seychelles or abroad to parents with Seychellois nationality. It can be granted to persons with an affiliation to the country, or to a permanent resident who has lived in the country for a given period of time through naturalisation or registration.
Historically famous as the spot where Frenchman Lazare Picault, leading an expedition, landed on 29 November 1742 in what was still an uninhabited archipelago.