Victoria, Republic of Seychelles

Victoria is the capital of the Republic of Seychelles, a small island nation in the Indian Ocean that consists of an archipelago of 115 islands distributed widely over more than one million square kilometers (almost 400,000 square miles). Victoria itself lies on the northeastern coast of Mahé, one of the two biggest islands in the Seychelles. It is the most populous settlement in the country, its biggest commercial center, and the home of its only port. Victoria is one of the world's smallest capital cities.

Landscape

Seventy-four of the islands of the Seychelles are coralline; forty-one, including Mahé, where Victoria is located, are granitic. These islands are the visible peaks of an underwater plateau that is millions of years old, and possess narrow coasts covered with lush jungle vegetation and steep, rocky hills and mountains. Victoria itself is about 1,750 kilometers (1,087 miles) east of Mombasa, Kenya, and about 2,830 kilometers (1,758 miles) southwest of the southern tip of India.

Victoria experiences a warm, humid, equatorial climate that does not vary much from month to month. Average daytime highs hover around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). Average yearly rainfall totals about 288 centimeters (90 inches). Victoria also has a deep natural harbor—the deepest in the Indian Ocean—which is formed by its proximity to the neighboring island of Saint Anne.

In the city's center stand a courthouse and a post office that date back to colonial times, as well as several old Seychellois Creole shops and cottages. Most of Victoria's other buildings and streets are typically more modern. The city is small enough to be entirely traversed on foot. An international airport is located nearby, and several paved roads link Victoria to other villages and landmarks on the island, such as Morne Seychellois National Park, where the highest peak in the Seychelles can be found.

People

Victoria's population was 28,000 people as of 2018—more than one-quarter of the entire population of the Seychelles, which was 97,617 inhabitants as of 2023. Modern Seychellois, as the islands' inhabitants are known, are descended from a rich ethnic mix of people, including French planters and enslaved people from Africa and Madagascar, as well as immigrants from Britain, India, China, and Malaya. Victoria is largely Christian, with Catholics making up an estimated 76.2 percent of the population and Anglicans, other Christians, and people of other faiths forming small minorities.

As there is no taboo against intermarriage, Victoria has a relatively homogenized population of Seychellois Creole people, although some distinct communities of ethnic Indian and Chinese merchants still remain. In addition, Victoria is home to a small population of American expatriates. The Seychelles has three official languages: English, French, and Seychellois Creole, a French-based creole language. Most Victorians speak Seychellois Creole at home, but English and French are used for administrative purposes and commercial transactions and are widely spoken.

Due to the government's emphasis on childhood and adult education, the adult literacy rate of the Seychelles was estimated at 95.9 percent as of 2018. Approximately 96.2 percent of the population had access to improved drinking water in 2017, and 100 percent had access to improved sanitation facilities in 2020. Access to electricity is virtually universal, and the average life expectancy of a Seychellois—76.4 years as of 2023 estimates—is among the highest in the region.

Economy

Victoria's economy, like that of the Seychelles as a whole, is centered on the tourism and fishing industries. Since 1972, when Seychelles International Airport opened just outside of Victoria, tourism has become a major focus of the country's economic activity. Approximately 26 percent of the Seychellois workforce is employed in the tourism industry and the industry contributes 55 percent to Seychelles's gross domestic product. According to the World Bank in 2019, Seychelles had 361,844 visitors in 2018 and a record 384,204 in 2019. After several down years due to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the nation's tourism numbers rebounded to 350,879 in 2023. Most tourists to the Seychelles come from Europe, particularly France. In order to protect the nation's unique ecological resources, the Seychellois government has implemented policies that ensure the development of the tourist industry takes place in a sustainable manner.

The fishing industry, which is dominated by tuna fishing and canning, is an equally important part of the economy. Although there is a small traditional fishing community in Victoria, the number of industrial fishing fleets has grown greatly in recent years. The tuna that is found in the waters around the Seychelles does not school with dolphins.

One of the Seychelles' smaller industries is agriculture. The country produces a number of export items, including coconut, vanilla, and cinnamon bark. However, because there is a shortage of fertile soil and because levels of rainfall can be unpredictable, agriculture plays a relatively minor role in the economy, contributing an estimated 2.5 percent of the 2017 gross domestic product (GDP).

In late 2004 and early 2005, both Victoria's tourism and its tuna-fishing industries suffered a major blow due to the flooding that resulted from the great Indian Ocean earthquake (and subsequent tsunamis) that took place in December 2004. The floods damaged transportation and tourist facilities and also affected the physical infrastructure of the fishing industry.

Seychelles asked for assistance from the International Monetary Fund in 2008, after the nation had run through its foreign exchange reserves and defaulted on a $230 million Eurobond. With the help of IMF reforms, by 2013 Seychelles had become "a market-based economy with full employment and a fiscal surplus," according to the World Factbook. Due to its economic success and newfound status as a developed country, however, Seychelles was no longer eligible for US African Growth and Opportunities Act trade benefits.

Landmarks

A large part of Victoria's natural beauty comes from the astonishingly wide variety of flora and fauna that can be observed on the island of Mahé. As a result, Victoria's beautifully maintained Botanical Gardens are an extremely popular attraction. They can be reached by a ten minute walk south from the city center, and contain rainforest trees, coco de mer palms (a species native only to the Seychelles), and some giant tortoises. The giant tortoises that are found in the Seychelles are one of only two living species of giant tortoise in the world.

The city center is arranged around a square known as Freedom Square, in which stands Victoria's best-known landmark. This is a 1903 British-built replica of Little Ben, a miniature clock tower located at the corner of Vauxhall Bridge Road and Victoria Street in central London.

Not far from the clock tower is the Law Courts building, fronted by a fountain that is crowned by a tiny statue of Queen Victoria. The statue, which dates to 1897, is a mere 35 centimeters (14 inches) tall. Other public sculptures in Victoria include a statue whose three pairs of bird wings symbolize the people of Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as a statue memorializing the 1977 revolution, which stands before Victoria's stadium.

Victoria also houses a Natural History Museum and a National History Museum, several churches (including the late nineteenth-century Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception), and a crowded market district whose center is the busy Selwyn-Clarke Market.

History

Arab traders were aware of the Seychelles as early as the ninth century. In the early sixteenth century, the islands were visited and charted by Vasco da Gama. Although Portugal claimed the islands as its territory, it did nothing to develop them, and they remained uninhabited. In 1609, a delegation from the British East India Company made a brief excursion onto the islands, but did not develop or settle on them despite the islands' abundant natural resources. More than a century later, French explorer Lazare Picault was sent on two expeditions to the islands; on his second visit, he named the island of Mahé after the official who had given him his mission. The French made the archipelago a colony in 1756 named it in honor of Jean Moreau de Séchelles, the French minister of finance under Louis XV.

In the early 1800s, after a struggle with the French, the British took control over the Seychelles, and under their rule land was ceded to the island's settlers. In 1833, the British abolished slavery. This act resulted in a shortage of plantation labor and a shift in the type of crops that were grown on the island, from cotton and grains towards vanilla, coconut, and cinnamon.

In 1840, the biggest city in the Seychelles was given the name Victoria, after the Queen of England. However, Victoria did not become the administrative center of the colony until 1888; before that time, the Seychelles was governed remotely, from Mauritius. In 1903, the islands were officially named a separate crown colony of the British, and in 1948, Victoria became the site of the country's elected legislative council.

The first stirrings of a desire for independence came in 1964 , but it was not until 1976, after the establishment of a constitution and voting rights for all, that the Seychelles declared itself an independent republic. James R. Mancham became the country's the first president, but he was replaced in a coup d'état the following year by Albert René.

Under President René, the Seychelles was governed by a single party for more than a decade, but following several attempts at coups during the 1980s, and as a result of pressure from foreign nations on which the country was dependent for aid, a multiparty system was reestablished in the early 1990s. However, candidates from René's People's Party (formerly the Seychelles People's Progressive Front) have won both the presidency and the majority of the seats in the National Assembly in every election since 1993.

Bibliography

"Seychelles." The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 21 Feb. 2024, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/seychelles/. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

National Bureau of Statistics, Seychelles. 2024, www.nbs.gov.sc/. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.

"Seychelles Overview." The World Bank, 21 Sept. 2023, www.worldbank.org/en/country/seychelles/overview. Accessed 28 Feb. 2024.