São Tomé and Príncipe

São Tomé and Príncipe has two main islands.

The big one is São Tomé. The small one is Príncipe. People speak Portuguese there.

São Tomé and Príncipe is an island country in the Gulf of Guinea, a part of the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Central Africa. It sits right on the Equator. Its closest neighbors are Gabon and Equatorial Guinea on the mainland.

The country has two main islands and several small rocky islets. São Tomé is the larger, oval-shaped island; Príncipe lies about 145 kilometers to its northeast. Portuguese is the official language, and the 2024 census counted 209,607 people. The photo shows São Tomé city beside Ana Chaves Bay.

Britannica describes an island country of Central Africa on the Equator in the Gulf of Guinea: the oval island of São Tomé, the smaller Príncipe about 145 km to its northeast, and rocky islets including Rôlas south of São Tomé and Caroço, Pedras and Tinhosas south of Príncipe. The total area is 1,001 km².

The National Institute of Statistics' fifth general census (November to December 2024) counted 209,607 residents, up from 178,739 in 2012; 95.3% live on São Tomé island and 4.7% on Príncipe. Standard Portuguese is official and understood by virtually everyone, and the currency is the dobra, pegged to the euro since 2010. The photo shows São Tomé city on Ana Chaves Bay.

São Tomé city is the capital.

It is by a bay on the big island. Santo António is the main town on Príncipe.

The capital, São Tomé city, stands on a bay in the northeast of São Tomé island, where the land is flatter and drier. About a third of the people live in the city and around it.

On Príncipe, the main town is Santo António. It was once the capital: in 1753 the Portuguese moved the capital there, and it moved back to São Tomé city in 1852. Many homes on the islands are built of wooden planks and raised up off the ground, alongside concrete buildings in the old Portuguese style.

People cluster in the drier, flatter northeast of both islands. Britannica notes that a third of the population lives in São Tomé city and its outskirts; in the 2024 census Água Grande, the capital's district, held 80,647 people (38.5%), while Príncipe, an autonomous region, had 9,830. Almost three-quarters of the population is urban, and many people live in dispersed settlements called lucháns.

Because of political unrest on São Tomé, the capital moved in 1753 to Santo António on Príncipe, whose harbor was busy; it returned to São Tomé city in 1852, when coffee and cacao shifted the economy back. Typical houses are of wooden planks raised above the ground, beside colonial-style concrete buildings and barrack-like housing on some plantations.

The islands were made by volcanoes long ago.

Tall mountains drop down to the sea. It rains a lot on one side. It is warm all year.

High volcanic mountains rise in the south and west of both islands and drop steeply to the sea, but no volcano has erupted there for centuries. São Tomé Peak, the highest point, is 2,024 meters tall. Fast, rocky streams rush down to the coast in every direction.

Wet winds from the southwest hit the mountains, so the southwest of São Tomé gets more than 7,000 millimeters of rain a year, while the far northeast gets less than 760. The coast is warm and humid all year. High in the mountains the nights are cold and misty rain falls almost all the time, but there is never frost or snow.

In the south and west of both islands volcanic mountains fall precipitously to the sea, though neither island has seen volcanic activity in recent centuries; they descend gradually to small plains in the northeast. São Tomé Peak reaches 2,024 m and Príncipe Peak 948 m. Stream erosion has deeply dissected the uplands, and isolated volcanic plugs, such as João Dias Pai and João Dias Filho on Príncipe's west coast, stand out as landmarks.

The climate is maritime and tropical, with many microclimates. Moist southwesterlies give the southwest of São Tomé more than 7,000 mm of rain a year against under 760 mm in the far northeast, where the dry season, the gravana, lasts from June to September. Coastal temperatures average in the upper 20s °C with humidity near 80%; nights fall below 10 °C at about 700 m, and above 1,000 m misty rain is almost continuous.

Rainforest grows on the mountains.

Many plants and animals here live nowhere else. Sea turtles lay eggs on the beaches.

The islands were once covered in thick rainforest. Some forest remains, mostly in the south and west. Because the islands are so isolated, many of their plants and animals are endemic: found nowhere else in the world. Birds include ibises, shrikes and grosbeaks.

Scientists from the California Academy of Sciences say almost every expedition has found new species on the islands. Sea turtles lay their eggs on the beaches; São Tomé has important nesting areas for hawksbill turtles. The hawksbill in the photo was photographed in Egypt.

The original cover was luxuriant tropical rainforest grading from lowland to mist forest; what survives, mainly in the south and west, is largely secondary growth on abandoned plantations. Long isolation and varied environments produced many rare and endemic species, and Britannica warns that many plants, birds, reptiles and small mammals are threatened by pressure on the remaining forest.

UNESCO, which made Príncipe a biosphere reserve in 2012, notes high endemism in vascular plants, molluscs, insects, birds, reptiles and bats, and the island's importance for breeding sea turtles, seabirds and cetaceans. São Tomé has important nesting and foraging areas for the critically endangered eastern Atlantic hawksbill subpopulation; in 2015 Programa Tatô surveyed 140 km of coast with local fishers to find more. The hawksbill photo was taken in Ras Muhammad National Park, Egypt.

Most people speak Portuguese.

Many also speak a local language. Football is the favorite sport. Cacao trees grow on the farms.

Most São Toméans are Forros, whose ancestors were Europeans and enslaved Africans; forro means 'free man' in Portuguese. The Angolares are descended from Angolans shipwrecked on São Tomé about 1540. Besides Portuguese, three local creole languages are spoken, and the culture blends Portuguese and African ways.

Tchiloli, a play based on a Portuguese drama from the 1500s, is performed on São Tomé. Football (soccer) is the most popular sport. Cacao trees, whose seeds become chocolate, cover a little less than two-thirds of the farmland, and cocoa is the main export.

The population is mainly Forros (from forro, 'free man'), descendants of immigrant Europeans and enslaved Africans, plus the Angolares, descended from formerly enslaved Angolans shipwrecked about 1540, who lived apart in the south until the late 19th century. Cabo Verdeans are the largest group of resident foreigners. Three Portuguese-based creoles are spoken: Sãotomense, Angolar and Principense, the last by only a few hundred people. The Roman Catholic Church is the largest faith.

The creole culture blends Portuguese and African elements: Tchiloli on São Tomé and Auto da Floripes on Príncipe are both based on 16th-century Portuguese dramas. Football has been the most popular sport since a first association in 1931. About two-fifths of the land is cultivated, cacao covering a little less than two-thirds of it, and cocoa earns almost all merchandise export income.