Where is Mauritius island located?

Mauritius is a smaller island nation located in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Madagascar. The island nation covers just over 2 000 square kilometers. However, it is home to 1.265 million people. It is the most densely populated country in Africa.

Even though Mayotte is more populated, that’s not an independent nation, it’s a territory of France, so it doesn’t quite count. This dense population should not be misconstrued as simply a tiny island in the middle of the ocean crammed with people, because it’s a lot more than that. This nation seems to be thriving in a way that many other African countries are not. It is the only African nation with a very high level of human development according to the human development index. Several years ago, it was also ranked as the most peaceful country in Africa. Furthermore, the nation has many free services for people such as students, the elderly, and the disabled. Furthermore, the nation’s natural beauty is breathtaking, from its natural surroundings to the animals living there.

Mauritius’ most famous animal resident is infamously no longer with us. Dodos were found only in Mauritius, and we all know what happened to them although it sounded like a slice of paradise off the coast of Africa. Mauritius has quite a history. Different nations have claimed ownership of this small island. The island’s location makes it desirable for a few empires, and its land is suitable for farming.

Interesting is how different foreign powers have given the island different names, which has resulted in this tiny island having quite a few titles.

The country has gone by a lot of names over the years, but it isn’t the only one. Mauritius’s different names are quite interesting because they reflect the island’s history. In other parts of the world, we can see the same thing through the island’s names. Czechia comes to mind with its long history of different names and even the democratic republic of the congo.

The names and the history of Mauritius reveal that one of the major reasons as to why it has had so many names over the years is that unlike other countries that were renamed by foreign empires there were no native people on this island who had already given it a name.

In other words, they couldn’t appeal to have the name reinstated like we’ve seen in the past with other regions. This little island remained uninhabited and unknown to the rest of the world for a staggeringly long period of time. Most likely, human interaction on this island began in the middle ages. Nevertheless, it would have just been sailors and merchants who stumbled upon it during their voyages that set up shop there in the Middle Ages, splitting the Arab traders that traded with it. The eastern coast of Africa was the first to lay eyes on this island and the first to name it with the first known name of the island.

Dina Arobi is an Arabic name that appears on a world map from 1502 created by Italian cartographer Alberto Cantino. It is thought to simply mean an abandoned island. The fact that this was an uninhabited island makes sense. It is easy to understand why sailors would consider it abandoned; it would remain abandoned for a long time, however, as more European powers started eyeing land in east Africa and the Indian ocean, it became clear that it would make sense to establish a base of operations here.

During the early 16th century, the Portuguese became the first Europeans in this part of the world, and they were the first to give the island a European name. Portuguese explorer Diogo Fernandez was the first European to set foot on the island. Landing there in 1507, he also named it that year. Landing there in 1507, he also named it that year. Arriving on the island in 1507, he also gave it the name Ile de Cerne. In English, these names now mean either swan island or simply swan. While you might think Swansea spotted this island, that’s not the case. The island was named after his ship, also called the Swan. I don’t know why this ship was called this, but Swan is a pretty good name for a boat.

It is most likely because both of them spend a lot of time on water why this island was given its name. As a source pointed out, the island was named after the birds on the island and not swans. Regardless, the island’s extinct resident, the dodo, looked nothing like swans to my mind, but perhaps the abundance of birds on the island contributed to Diego’s decision to name the island after his avian ship. The Portuguese did not actually settle the island, despite finding and naming it. The reason is that it didn’t contain anything they were particularly interested in, so instead of setting up shop there, they used it as a pit stop. They stopped there to gather food and water during their journey.

The population of the dodo dwindled because of Portuguese control over the island. It was not specifically Portuguese territory but it was still viewed as their possession. The biggest Portuguese influence is in the name, not of Mauritius itself but for this part of the world as a whole. the chain of islands that covers Mauritius and the French overseas department of reunion is called the Mascarene islands, which is in fact a Portuguese term. The name comes from the Portuguese explorer Dom Pedro Masscalenas, who explored this part of the world in 1512.

Five years after the Portuguese first settled on Mauritius, despite having deep ties with them, it was never technically their territory. Therefore, anyone could claim it for themselves and this is exactly what happened in 1598. On the 17th of September of that year, a fleet of five Dutch ships docked on the island like the Portuguese who also wanted to land in this part of the world and used the island as a pit stop before continuing their journeys. While it might seem like the dutch didn’t have much of an impact on the island, they actually introduced sugarcane and domestic animals to the island 40 years later in 1638. However, this didn’t work out too well for them, so they stayed just a pit stop for the entire time until 1710. During the time of their regime, it was believed that the poor dodo finally became extinct, but they had another huge impact on the island that is extremely important to us as well. They named the island Mauritius after Maurice Prince Van Nassau. Mauritian is one of a dozen nations that have been named after real people, like the Philippines and Bolivia, and so the island got the name on Mauritian. Without going into the details of who this stat holder was and what the Dutch republic was, I will simply say that he was a pretty big deal at the time, and this explains why the Dutch explored a name and named it after him. As I said, the island was given this name in 1598, but it would not remain that way for so long as the Dutch abandoned Mauritius in 1710, leaving it abandoned once again until another European power claimed the land five years later, this time France. After claiming the island in 1715, the British used it once again as a stopover on their way to India, however, 20 years later in 1735, they began to do something about it. Under the watch of the French governor Maher de Labourdonnais, neither the Portuguese nor the Dutch could settle the island.

In addition to the buildings constructed on the island, it became something of a ship-building hub due to the fact that the island of reunion island was nearby and already under their control, making it a launching point for Mauritius. However, the French gave it a name a bit more French than Mauritius, though that name may be a bit too French. They called it ile de france, or the French island.

As i hinted towards it’s a bit on the nose while it could have been given this name simply because it was an island that belonged to France it could have also possibly been named after the ile de France in actual France which isn’t an actual island but one of its regions which houses the nation’s capital Paris perhaps the island was named after this region in ode to their homeland from this land that the french launched several successful raids on British ships this, however, came to a breaking point in 1810 when the British had had enough and launched its own raid on the island under instructions to capture it with its strategic location ability to grow sugar and growth in population Britain.

The French had been ironing up the island already but these raids gave them enough reasons to claim it. The British military and intelligence they gathered on the island made it easy for the French. The island was handed over from French to British control in 1814 and renamed Mauritius. During British rule, the island expanded and grew even more following the abolition of slavery in 1835.

It also meant workers were brought over from India, which has left an impact that is still visible today with Hinduism being the nation’s most popular religion and the language of Bhojpuri which comes from India, being fairly popular across the island as well.

Mauritian history continued to grow and morph into the nation we know today, finally achieving independence in 1968. They decided to keep the name Mauritius just as the British did as it was the name it had for a very long time in modern history.

There was no indigenous population when Europeans first settled the island, so there were no indigenous names. It is so common for former empire locations to revert to native names when they become independent.

Mauritius, however, could not have happened as there was no native population, so I guess Mauritius could be seen as the native name as the Dutch were the first to settle the island.

though not very well they could be seen as the island’s native inhabitants I guess we should probably have asked to do those what they called the island but we kind of killed them all before we got the chance to though despite giving the island a bit of a two direct name french has maintained a strong presence on the island while the nation has no official language French as well as English is widely spoken there in french the island is called Maurice on top of this a native creole language has emerged here thanks to the diverse group of people who’ve lived here and it’s heavily based on french in the Mauritian creole the nation is simply called Moris. I have also neglected to mention that the nation of Mauritius is made up of more than just one island. Several smaller islands are also part of this nation: Rodrigues, Agalega, and Saint Brandon.

Agalega’s name has yet to be clarified but is thought to be of Spanish or Portuguese origin possibly derived from the name of a ship. Rodrigue island is named after Diogo Rodriguez, the first European to set foot on the island.