Seychelles

Seychelles is made of many islands.

They are in the warm Indian Ocean. People speak Creole, English and French. The capital city is Victoria.

Seychelles is a country of about 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean. The main islands are about 1,600 kilometers east of Kenya and about 1,100 kilometers northeast of Madagascar. Nobody lived on the islands until settlers came in the 1700s.

Most people speak Creole, also called Seselwa, and English and French are national languages too. More than four out of five people live on Mahé, the biggest island, where the capital, Victoria, stands. The National Bureau of Statistics estimated about 122,000 people at the end of 2024.

Britannica places Seychelles between latitudes 4° and 11° S and longitudes 46° and 56° E, its major islands about 1,600 km east of Kenya and 1,100 km northeast of Madagascar. The islands were uninhabited before French colonization, and the population today is largely of mixed descent.

The 2022 census's provisional results counted 100,477 residents, up from 90,945 in 2010; the National Bureau of Statistics estimated 122,038 people living in the country on December 31, 2024, Seychellois and non-Seychellois together (101,093 of them Seychellois). Under the constitution Creole (Seselwa), English and French are national languages. Wikidata gives a land area of 459 km². The currency is the Seychelles rupee.

Victoria is the capital city.

It is on the island of Mahé. The photo shows a bus in Victoria. On Praslin there is a forest of special palm trees.

Victoria, the capital, is on the northeast coast of Mahé. It is the country's only port and its only big town. The photo shows a bus on a street in Victoria. Mahé also has the highest point, Morne Seychellois, 905 meters high.

On the island of Praslin is the Vallée de Mai, a forest of ancient palm trees and a World Heritage Site. Nearby Cousin Island is a nature reserve for land birds. Far to the southwest lies Aldabra, a huge ring of coral islands.

Victoria, on Mahé's northeast coast, is the sole port and the only town of significant size, home to more than one-fourth of Mahé's people; more than four-fifths of all Seychellois live on Mahé. Morne Seychellois (905 m) is the highest point.

UNESCO inscribed the Vallée de Mai on Praslin in 1983: a 19.5 ha palm forest largely unchanged since prehistoric times, inside the 300 ha Praslin National Park. Cousin Island holds a sanctuary for land birds such as the Seychelles brush warbler. Aldabra Atoll, inscribed in 1982, lies far to the southwest near 46° E.

Some islands are tall and rocky.

Others are low and flat, made of coral. It is warm all year. Coco de mer palms grow huge seeds.

Seychelles has two kinds of islands. More than 40 are granite islands with hills in the middle, green forests and white beaches. More than 70 are flat coral islands rising only a little above the sea, and most have no fresh water.

It is warm and humid all year, from about 30 °C in the afternoon to about 20 °C at night. About 80 kinds of plants grow nowhere else, including the coco de mer palm, whose seed is the largest seed of any plant. Aldabra Atoll is four coral islands around a shallow lagoon.

The Mahé group has more than 40 central, mountainous granitic islands with narrow coastal strips and central hills; the outer group has more than 70 flat coralline islands with raised reefs at various stages, mostly waterless and few inhabited. The climate is tropical oceanic: afternoons in the low 30s °C, nights in the low 20s °C, humidity high; on Mahé rain ranges from about 2,300 mm at sea level to 3,560 mm on the slopes.

Of about 200 plant species, some 80 are endemic, including screw pines, jellyfish trees, latanier palms and the coco de mer, found on only two islands. UNESCO calls the coco de mer the bearer of the largest seed in the plant kingdom. Aldabra is four coral limestone islands enclosing a large shallow lagoon, ringed by a fringing reef, and UNESCO counts it among the largest atolls in the world.

Giant tortoises live on Aldabra.

About 180,000 of them live there! Rare birds, fruit bats and many fish live in Seychelles too.

Aldabra Atoll is home to the largest population of giant tortoises in the world: a survey published in 2026 estimated about 180,000. Being so far from people has kept the atoll wild. Aldabra also has a flightless bird, the white-throated rail.

Around the islands swim more than 900 kinds of fish and green sea turtles. Birds such as the Seychelles bulbul and the Seychelles swiftlet, which nests in caves, live nowhere else, and two kinds of bats are found only here. The tortoise in the photo lives on an island in Tanzania.

UNESCO credits Aldabra's isolation with keeping the world's largest population of giant tortoises; a survey led by the Seychelles Islands Foundation and the University of Exeter, reported in October 2026, estimated about 180,000, the highest figure ever recorded for the species, where an herbivore unusually tops the land food chain; it also has two endemic birds, the Aldabra brush warbler and Aldabra drongo, and the white-throated rail, the last remaining flightless bird of the western Indian Ocean.

Britannica lists more than 900 identified fish species, green sea turtles and giant tortoises, and endemics including the Seychelles bulbul, cave-dwelling Seychelles swiftlet, tree frogs, caecilians, Seychelles wolf snakes and tiger chameleons; the fruit bat Pteropus seychellensis and the Seychelles sheath-tailed bat are endemic mammals. Tenrecs were introduced from Madagascar. The tortoise photo was taken on Changuu Island, Tanzania.

People in Seychelles have families from many places.

Most people speak Creole. Many visitors come to the islands. Tuna is canned there.

The first settlers were French colonists and the enslaved Africans they brought. Later, people came from France, China, India and Malaysia, and many families have mixed roots. Most people speak Creole at home.

The economy depends heavily on tourism. Fishing matters too, and canned tuna is an important product. Farmers grow coconuts, cinnamon, vanilla and tea, though much food is brought in from other countries. More than three-fourths of people are Roman Catholic.

French colonists and the enslaved Africans they brought were joined in the 19th century by deportees from France and later, in smaller numbers, by people from China, India and Malaya; widespread intermarriage produced a population of mixed descent. Creole (Seselwa) is the mother tongue of most Seychellois, and more than three-fourths of people are Roman Catholic, with Anglican, other Christian, Hindu and Muslim communities. About one-fifth of people are under 15, and life expectancy is well above the global average.

The economy depends heavily on services, especially tourism. A modern fishing industry makes canned tuna a key export, alongside copra, frozen fish and cinnamon; vanilla, tea and limes are grown, though soils are poor and food is largely imported.