Agaléga

About

Agaléga (French: îles Agaléga) is a dependency of Mauritius, as defined by the Constitution of Mauritius, which consists of two outer islands located in the Indian Ocean, about 1,050 km (650 mi) north of Mauritius Island. Similar to other Mauritian islands such as St. Brandon, Agaléga is run directly by the Prime Minister of Mauritius through the Prime Minister's Office to the Outer Island Development Corporation (OIDC). The population of the islands rose from 289 in 2011 to 330 in 2022. The islands have a total area of 2,600 ha (6,400 acres). The North island is 12.5 km (7.8 mi) long and 1.5 km (0.9 mi) wide, while the South island is 7 km (4.3 mi) long and 4.5 km (2.8 mi) wide. The North Island is home to the islands' airstrip and the capital Vingt-Cinq. The islands are known for their production of coconuts, their main industry and, also, for the Agalega day gecko.

There are three different explanations for the name Agaléga.

One hypothesis is that the Portuguese explorer, Dom Pedro Mascarenhas, named Agaléga and the island of Sainte Marie (off the east coast of Madagascar) in honour of his two sailboats, the "Galega" and the "Santa Maria" in 1512, when he discovered Mauritius and Réunion Island. Another, more probable explanation relates to the Galician explorer João da Nova, who discovered the islands in 1501 while working for the Portuguese. João was popularly known by his sailors as João Galego, according to Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès' Les Nouvelles Annales de Voyage (Volume 38, page 88). Galego is the Galician/Portuguese word for someone from Galicia, North West Spain, and "Agalega", is derived from the feminine version of this (a is the feminine article in Galician/Portuguese, and Galician illa for "island" is feminine, so a [ilha] galega would mean "the Galician [Island]"). or simply "from Galicia". A further, less likely, idea comes from a story in Sir Robert Scott's book Limuria: The Lesser Dependencies of Mauritius, where he describes the 1509 discovery of the Islands by the Portuguese mariner Diogo Lopes de Sequeira. According to this version, Diogo named the Islands Baixas da Gale, with the "da Gale" referring to putative gale-force winds hypothetically modelling the coasts of both islands. Scott suggests that maps of the region represented the islands initially as Gale, metamorphosing into Galera, Galega and finally Agalega. Agale 1519 Atlas Miller, Pedro Reiner [1]https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55002605w/f2.item# Gale 1519 Carte du Monde Jorge Reinel, Sevilla [2]https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b59055673/f1.item Y. de la Gale 1525 Planisfero Castiglioni: Carta del navigare universalissima et dil. gentilissima, Sevilla [3]https://edl.beniculturali.it/beu/850013656 Y. de la Galera 1548 Africa Nova tabula Gioan. Gastaldi, Giacomo; Pietro Andrea, Pb. Baptista Pedrezano Venecia [4]https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~291327~90063055 Y. de la galera 1570 Ortelius, Abraham, 1527-1598 Africae Tabula Nova.Pb. Gielis Coppens van Diest; Anberes [5] Agalega 1587 Tavola XVI. Che Ha Sua Superiore La Tavola Settima. Libro Terzo. Monte (Monti), Urbano, 1544-1613 Manuscript [6] Da Galega 1595 Indian Ocean. Delineatio Orarum maritimarum, Terra vulgo indigetata Terra do Naral, item Sofale, Mozambicae ....Linschoten, Jan Huygen van, 1563-1611Paludanus, Bernard, 1550-1633 Chez Evert Pb. Cloppenburgh, Amsterdam [7] Y. de la Galera 1599 Africa Nuova tavola, Ruscelli, Girolamo; Rosaccio, Giuseppe; Appresso gli heredi di Melchior Sessa; Venecia [8] I. du Gallega: 1607 "Abissinorum Sive Pretiosi Ioannis Imperiu" Cornelis Claes, Amsterdam [9] I. d. Gale 1665 Blaeu, Joan, 1596-1673 Africae nova descriptio Pb Joan Blaeu, Amsterdam [10]

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