Journey through the people, cities and ideas that shaped Cape Verde, from the islands before settlement to the republic of today.
Explore volcanic islands, Portuguese settlement, Atlantic trade, independence and the modern island republic.
Explore 7 historical periods, rulers and heads of government, and 52 chapters of territorial change.
Kings and chiefs, colonial governors, heads of state, prime ministers and political figures.
A Journey Through the Ages
Cape Verde: explore volcanic islands, Portuguese settlement, Atlantic trade, independence and the modern island republic. Discover 267 events across 7 historical periods.
1,000,000 BCE – 1459
The volcanic islands lay uninhabited for the whole of prehistory, and Fogo's flank collapse about 73,000 years ago left a record in Santiago. Portuguese ships were pushing south along the African coast in the 1450s, and the first sightings came before 1460.
1460 – 1649
António da Noli and others found the islands in 1460-62, and Ribeira Grande on Santiago and São Filipe on Fogo became the first towns. Enslaved Africans brought from the Guinea coast built a Creole society, while privateers such as Drake raided the capital.
1650 – 1834
French raiders destroyed Ribeira Grande in 1712, and Praia became the permanent capital in 1770. Repeated droughts, including 1747 and a famine of about 20,000 deaths in 1774, are estimated by Wikipedia to have killed well over 100,000 people across two centuries.
1835 – 1925
A coal depot at Porto Grande from 1838 turned São Vicente's Mindelo into a major Atlantic port, while slavery ended in the 1860s-70s (sources differ on the date). Guinea was separated in 1879, and emigration to the United States and São Tomé grew.
1926 – 1960
Under Portugal's authoritarian regime the Tarrafal camp opened in 1936, and the famines of 1941-43 and 1947-48 killed an estimated 45,000 people. Emigration and contract labour in São Tomé continued across these decades, and the PAIGC was founded in 1956.
1961 – 1990
The war in Guinea shaped Cape Verde even though little fighting took place on the islands, and the Carnation Revolution of April 1974 opened the road to independence on 5 July 1975. The union with Guinea-Bissau ended after the 1980 coup, and a single party ruled until multiparty elections in 1991.
1991 – present
Multiparty elections began in 1991, and tourism on Sal and Boa Vista, remittances and development aid drove growth. The 2021 census counted 491,233 residents, while nearly one million Cape Verdeans live abroad, and the PAICV won the 17 May 2026 election.
From the empty volcanic islands to Portuguese settlement, the Atlantic slave trade, the coaling port of Mindelo, the PAIGC and independence in 1975, 71,000 BCE – Today
From the uninhabited volcanic archipelago off West Africa to the Portuguese discovery of 1456-62, the settlement of Santiago in 1462 and the islands that followed, the slave-trade port of Ribeira Grande, pirates, droughts and famines, the Praia and Mindelo of the 19th century, the long link with Portuguese Guinea, the PAIGC struggle, independence on 5 July 1975, the multiparty republic and the diaspora. See how the ten islands were settled one by one.
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Explore volcanic islands, Portuguese settlement, Atlantic trade, independence and the modern island republic.
The volcanic islands lay uninhabited for the whole of prehistory, and Fogo's flank collapse about 73,000 years ago left a record in Santiago. Portuguese ships were pushing south along the African coast in the 1450s, and the first sightings came before 1460.
António da Noli and others found the islands in 1460-62, and Ribeira Grande on Santiago and São Filipe on Fogo became the first towns. Enslaved Africans brought from the Guinea coast built a Creole society, while privateers such as Drake raided the capital.
French raiders destroyed Ribeira Grande in 1712, and Praia became the permanent capital in 1770. Repeated droughts, including 1747 and a famine of about 20,000 deaths in 1774, are estimated by Wikipedia to have killed well over 100,000 people across two centuries.
A coal depot at Porto Grande from 1838 turned São Vicente's Mindelo into a major Atlantic port, while slavery ended in the 1860s-70s (sources differ on the date). Guinea was separated in 1879, and emigration to the United States and São Tomé grew.
Under Portugal's authoritarian regime the Tarrafal camp opened in 1936, and the famines of 1941-43 and 1947-48 killed an estimated 45,000 people. Emigration and contract labour in São Tomé continued across these decades, and the PAIGC was founded in 1956.
The war in Guinea shaped Cape Verde even though little fighting took place on the islands, and the Carnation Revolution of April 1974 opened the road to independence on 5 July 1975. The union with Guinea-Bissau ended after the 1980 coup, and a single party ruled until multiparty elections in 1991.
Multiparty elections began in 1991, and tourism on Sal and Boa Vista, remittances and development aid drove growth. The 2021 census counted 491,233 residents, while nearly one million Cape Verdeans live abroad, and the PAICV won the 17 May 2026 election.
Event, ruler, map and fact entries retain the references and caveats supplied with the dataset. Coverage extends through October 2026.
Early political zones and colonial extents are approximate. Modern outlines used as orientation or proxies are identified in the map. Population figures mix historical estimates and a UN series; the supplied map explains differences from census counts.
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Explore 62 facts from the supplied Cape Verde research. References and qualifications accompany each fact.
Did you know that Wikipedia says the name Cap-Vert, the peninsula on the Senegalese coast, comes from Portuguese Cabo Verde, meaning green cape, given by Portuguese explorers in 1445 (some sources say 1444), more than a decade before the islands 600 to 850 km to the west were reached.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Wikipedia says the Cape Verde islands were uninhabited before Europeans arrived, and that Portuguese records credit António da Noli with the first discoveries, although Genoese and Portuguese navigators are said to have found them around 1456.
Did you know that Alvise Cadamosto claimed to have found the islands in 1456 after a storm blew his ships about 300 miles west of Cape Vert, yet Wikipedia notes that historians Major and Cortesão doubt he ever saw them.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Wikipedia says Sal was discovered on 3 December 1460 and first called Chã, meaning flat, before it was renamed Sal, Portuguese for salt, after two large salt ponds, Pedra de Lume and Santa Maria, were found.
Did you know that Diogo Afonso reached Santa Luzia on 13 December 1461 and named it for Saint Lucy, and that Wikipedia says about 20 people once lived there raising livestock and extracting orchil dye from lichen, although the island is uninhabited today.
Did you know that Wikipedia says Portuguese settlers founded Ribeira Grande, now Cidade Velha, on Santiago in 1462, and that its planned layout made it the first European colonial settlement in the tropics.
Did you know that in 1466 King Afonso V granted the people of Cape Verde trading rights along the West African coast, except at Arguim, and that Wikipedia's history article says he rescinded the privilege a few years later.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Wikipedia says the church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário in Cidade Velha was built in 1495 and is considered the oldest colonial church in the world, while the town's pillory column was raised in 1512 or 1520.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Wikipedia says Vasco da Gama stopped at Ribeira Grande, now Cidade Velha, in 1497, Christopher Columbus in 1498 and Ferdinand Magellan's expedition in 1522, although Gama's own page places his Santiago call in 1499, on the return leg.
Did you know that the Sé Cathedral of Cidade Velha took from 1556 to 1705 to build, according to Wikipedia, and was pillaged in 1712, the year Jacques Cassard attacked the town, which later became a ruin.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Wikipedia says the 1680 eruption of Pico do Fogo covered much of Fogo in ash and forced many inhabitants to flee to Brava, which helped boost Brava's settlement.
Did you know that Wikipedia's history of Cape Verde dates the first of several droughts and famines to 1747, and says they then recurred at roughly five-year intervals, with rain falling irregularly, mostly between August and October.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that oral tradition holds that morna first appeared on Boa Vista in the 18th century, though Wikipedia notes that no musicological records confirm it, and that the name's origin is debated among English, French and Portuguese words.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Praia became the capital of Cape Verde in 1770 and was officially made a city in 1858, according to Wikipedia, and that about 29 percent of the country's population now lives in its municipality.
Did you know that Wikipedia says the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santiago de Cabo Verde, created in 1533 at Cidade Velha, had its seat on São Nicolau from 1786 to 1943.
Did you know that from the late 18th century American whaling ships used Brava's harbours and hired its men as sailors, and Wikipedia says several of them settled around New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Did you know that Mindelo was founded in 1793 as Nossa Senhora da Luz, became a town in 1858 and a city in 1879, and that Wikipedia says it is now Cape Verde's second largest city after Praia.
Did you know that exploitation of the salt ponds at Pedra de Lume, inside the crater of an extinct volcano, began in 1796 under Manuel António Martins, according to Wikipedia, with Brazil as the main export destination.
Did you know that Wikipedia says HMS Beagle reached Praia on Santiago around 16 January 1832, where Charles Darwin found a white layer of shells in the cliffs about 40 feet above the sea and was inspired to think of writing a geology book.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Wikipedia says Mindelo served from 1838 as a coal depot for British East India Company ships, and from 1850 for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which turned Porto Grande Bay into a coaling harbour.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that, after a first cable reached São Vicente in 1874, a submarine cable laid in 1884 linking Europe, Africa, India and North America made Mindelo a communications centre for the British Empire, and by 1912 Wikipedia says it was the most-used transatlantic telegraph station.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that the poet Eugénio Tavares, born on Brava in 1867, lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts from 1900 to 1910, wrote most of his poems in Brava Creole and later published the newspaper A Voz de Cabo Verde until 1916.
Did you know that in 1921 the French company Salins du Cap Vert installed an 1,100 m aerial tramway for salt at Pedra de Lume, after production had declined once Brazil banned imported salt in 1887.
Did you know that Amílcar Cabral, born on 12 September 1924 in Bafatá, Portuguese Guinea, to two Cape Verdean parents from Santiago, studied at the Liceu Gil Eanes in Mindelo before training as an agronomist in Lisbon.
Did you know that oral tradition, as Wikipedia reports it, says coladeira emerged in the 1930s when Anton' Tchitch' deliberately sped up a morna, to about 120 beats per minute, twice the usual 60 of a morna.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that the literary magazine Claridade was founded in Mindelo in 1936 by Manuel Lopes, Baltasar Lopes da Silva and Jorge Barbosa, and that Wikipedia says nine numbered issues appeared between 1936 and 1960.
Did you know that the Tarrafal camp on Santiago was established by a decree of 23 April 1936, that its first 157 prisoners arrived from Lisbon on 29 October 1936, and that 29 October is now marked as Antifascist Resistance Day.
Did you know that the first airport on Sal was built by Italy and received its first flight, from Rome and Seville, on 15 December 1939, before Portugal bought it and had it fully operational by 1949.
Did you know that Amílcar Cabral and Luís Cabral founded the PAIGC in 1956, a party whose name, African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, tied the independence goals of both territories together.
Did you know that from 1967 South African Airways used Sal to refuel because most African countries denied it landing rights, with up to 36 flights a week in the mid-1980s before US sanctions in 1987 cut traffic sharply.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Cape Verde became independent from Portugal on 5 July 1975, and Wikipedia says Aristides Pereira, born on Boa Vista in 1923, served as its first president until 22 March 1991.
Did you know that ECOWAS was founded on 28 May 1975, and that Wikipedia says Cape Verde, which joined in 1977, is the only current member that did not join as a founding member.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that funaná, music tied to the diatonic accordion called gaita, had its true revival in the 1980s through the band Bulimundo, after attempts to revive it in the 1970s after independence were unsuccessful.
Did you know that the Santa Luzia Nature Reserve, created in 1990, covers the uninhabited island, the islets Branco and Raso, 43 km² of land and 469 km² of ocean, and joined UNESCO's tentative list in 2016.
Did you know that after the one-party state was abolished on 28 September 1990, Cape Verde held its first multiparty elections in January 1991, and Wikipedia says António Mascarenhas Monteiro won the presidency in February by 73.5 to 26.5 percent.
Did you know that Cape Verde's current flag, with a circle of ten yellow stars for the ten islands, was adopted on 25 September 1992 from a design by architect Pedro Gregório, replacing a flag based on the PAIGC banner.
Did you know that Cesária Évora, discovered in Lisbon in 1987, broke through with her 1992 album Miss Perfumado, and that Wikipedia says a sold-out show at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris was her first major concert success.
Did you know that the unified alphabet for writing Cape Verdean Creole, ALUPEC, was approved experimentally in 1998 and institutionalized in 2009, yet it is recognized but not mandatory, so no single writing standard exists.
Did you know that Cesária Évora won a Grammy in 2004 for Best Contemporary World Music Album with Voz d'Amor, having received six Grammy nominations in all, and that she often performed barefoot.
Did you know that Wikipedia says the WTO approved Cape Verde's accession package on 18 December 2007, that Cape Verde ratified it on 23 June 2008, and that membership took effect on 23 July 2008.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Cidade Velha was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009, with a core area of 209.1 hectares, and was named that same year one of the Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin in the World.
Did you know that the former Tarrafal camp became the Museum of Resistance in 2009 and was recognised as a National Heritage Site on 14 August 2016, drawing over 9,000 visits a year according to a 2020 report cited by Wikipedia.
Did you know that in 2013 Cape Verde told the United Nations that only the Portuguese form Cabo Verde, which means green cape, should be used for official purposes, according to Wikipedia.
Did you know that Cape Verde's Blue Sharks reached the quarter-finals on their Africa Cup of Nations debut in 2013, and again in 2023, and that their highest FIFA ranking, 27th, came in February 2014.
Did you know that Pico do Fogo began erupting on 23 November 2014 and kept going for 77 days until 8 February 2015, and Wikipedia says it was the volcano's first eruption in 19 years and the largest since records began.
Did you know that during the 2014 Fogo eruption lava entered the village of Portela on 2 December, destroying about 50 houses, a school and a hotel, while about 1,000 residents of the two Chã das Caldeiras villages were displaced.
Did you know that the critically endangered Raso lark lives only on the islet of Raso, with an estimated 200 to 1,000 birds, and that Wikipedia says some were reintroduced to Santa Luzia between 2018 and 2020.
Did you know that UNESCO proclaimed morna, the plaintive music of love, departure and saudade, Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on 11 December 2019, according to Wikipedia.
Did you know that Wikipedia says Cape Verde had 491,233 residents at its 2021 census, while nearly one million Cape Verdeans live abroad, about 500,000 of them in the United States and about 150,000 in Portugal.
Did you know that Cape Verde was certified free of malaria in early 2024, on 12 January or 2 February depending on the source, becoming the third African country so recognised, according to Wikipedia, in an archipelago of ten volcanic islands of which nine are inhabited.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Cape Verde became the smallest country by land area to qualify for a World Cup, at 4,033 km², after winning its group in October 2025, a record Curaçao broke about five weeks later.
Did you know that Wikipedia gives two different ages for Cape Verde's volcanic islands, 40 to 50 million years in one passage and 8 to 20 million years in another, without reconciling them.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Pico do Fogo, at 2,829 m the highest point in Cape Verde, rises from an island of 476 km² that is practically one stratovolcano, ringed by the Bordeira caldera about 9 km wide with walls around 1 km high.
Did you know that Brava, whose name is Portuguese for wild, is the smallest inhabited island of Cape Verde at 62.51 km², with 5,698 people in 2015, and that ferries to Fogo and Santiago leave from Furna.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that Santo Antão, at 785 km² the largest of the Barlavento Islands, rises to Tope de Coroa at 1,979 m, and that Wikipedia says hiking, trekking and cultural tourism make up most of its tourist offer.
Did you know that Santiago covers 991 km², peaks at Pico da Antónia, 1,392 m, and is home to about half the nation's population, including the capital Praia, according to Wikipedia's page on the island.
Did you know that Wikipedia says loggerhead turtles hatch on Sal from July to September, that Cabo Verde is now the world's largest nesting aggregation for the species, and that Sal has the second-largest rookery.
Research confidence: medium; the supplied research identifies partial support.
Did you know that loggerhead turtles, whose only significant nesting site on the eastern side of the Atlantic is Cape Verde, have eggs that become females at 32 °C and males at 28 °C, with 30 °C giving an equal mix.
Did you know that cachupa, Cape Verde's national dish, is a slow-cooked stew of hominy, beans and fish or meat, and that leftovers are often re-fried as cachupa refogada, sometimes served for breakfast with a fried egg.
Did you know that grogue, Cape Verde's sugarcane spirit, takes its name from the English word grog, is made mainly on Santo Antão and Santiago, and is the base of ponche, which Wikipedia compares to Madeira's poncha.
Did you know that Cape Verdean Creole has about 871,000 native speakers and is described by Wikipedia as the oldest living creole, yet Portuguese remains the only official language and Creole has not been officialized.
Did you know that less than two percent of Cape Verde's land is arable, and that Mindelo on São Vicente receives only 127 mm of rain a year, so a desalination plant supplies its water, according to Wikipedia.