Visit São Tomé - Your Sao Tome Island Guide

Did you know?

Did you know that Sao Tome and Principe is the second-smallest country in Africa, just after Seixelles? Or that Sao Tome was one of the last places to have "slaves" right up to 1910? Or that the Einstein's theory of relativity was successfully proved on Príncipe island?

Here is a list of interesting things you probably don’t know about the Sao Tomé Islands.

Did you know that:

      • We're not as small as everyone tries to convince you! The islands of São Tomé and Príncipe of 1,000 km2 (372 sq mi) are just the terrestrial part of an immense oceanic nation that expands in more than 160,000 km2 (61,776 sq mi) of area in the Atlantic ocean. The whole country including its marine area is 160,000 times larger than its land area.
      • Sao Tome is one of the few countries luky enough to lie at the equator line, a imaginary line that runs across the center of the Earth at a latitude of exactly zero degrees and divides the earth into the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. This gives a country a warmer experience and two seasons of dry and wet weather. Tourists stop at the Equator not just for photographs, but also for simple demonstrations that prove it is indeed the famous crossing.
      • This is the reason we are known as "the islands in the middle of the world", because of our proximity to the zero point on GPS, with the prime meridien just few degrees to the west and the equator crossing one island. According to the theory of continental drift, this may have been the location where South America and Africa were once joined.
      • The twenty century single most important scientific experiment that catapulted Albert Einstein into rock star fame taked place in São Tomé and Príncipe. In 1919, during an eclipse expedition, British astrophysicist Arthur Stanley Eddington successfully proved Einstein’s theory of relativity on Príncipe.
      • Once upon a time São Tomé and Príncipe was a portuguese colony. Sao Tome and Principe was one of the last places to have slaves right up to 1910. On the island of Sao Tomé in the nineteenth century, more than 100,000 Africans labored on cacao plantations; though slavery was formally abolished in 1876, their descendants worked as de facto slaves until 1975, when the island gained independence from Portugal. One of the few places in the world where you can see the faces of the last ex-slaves in life.
      • West Africa’s ‘Chocolate Isles’ or Africa's sweet spot. In the early 20th century, most of the world’s chocolate originated from here. At one time it was Africa's largest producer of sugar and the world's largest producer of cocoa.
      • In recent years we acquired a new reputation as one of Africa’s most successful countries in fighting malaria. According to the World Health Organization: "Since 2014, the nation of São Tomé and Principe has had zero malaria deaths, making it the only country in sub-Saharan Africa to maintain that achievement for several consecutive years." These figures put São Tomé at the vanguard of a small, elite group of African countries that are poised to eliminate malaria within the next five years.
      • If you are making plans for a vacation, São Tome and Principe is the right place to go if you want to find the cleanest air in the world. It's the nation with the lowest carbon dioxide emissions and one of few Carbon Negative Nation On Earth. In fact, in terms of greenhouse gases (GHG) ballance, the country is an absolute sink of greenhouse gases, i.e. it removes four times more GHGs than it produces.
      • Sao Tome and Principe is the country with the lowest prevalence of smokers in the world, just after Antigua and Barbuda.
      • Sao Tome has the lowest organised crime rate in Africa, according to the first edition of the “Enact Organised Crime Index – Improving Africa’s Response to Transnational Organised Crime”, with data for 2018. Sao Tome and Principe scored an average of 1.88 points in the organised crime index, which stands out from the continent’s average (4.97 points), with the second country with the lowest organized crime, Tunisia, showing an average of 3.26 points.
      • Sao Tome and Principe has built sustainability into its national identity. 90 per cent of the country is covered in forest. Sao Tome and Principe currently has a staggering 42% of its territorial area being protected as national parks, charing the Africa's number one ranking position with Seixelles.
      • The island is very popular among bird watchers and biologists because of its many endemic species and the vast areas of unspoiled nature. There are approximately 135 different species of birds in the Sao Tome and Principe Islands. 29 species of endemic bird live on the islands.
      • Part of the country was declared a Unesco biosphere reserve. In 2012, the whole island of Príncipe and surrounding waters and islets were classified as a Man and Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO — a classification that has helped promote sustainable development goals in the country’s smaller island.
      • In 2016, more than 13% of saotomean useful agricultural land - 13.8% exactly - was in organic farming. Sao Tome and Principe is the african country with the highest share of organic agricultural area. In global terms, this figure represents the fifth place in the world ranking of country's with highest "Organic shares of total agricultural land 2015". Organic Cocoa is the most important export product (95%).
      • Saotomean people have an average lifespan of 69 years old, which ranks second in western africa. According to a WHO life expectancy list published in 2018 we are in the top 5 African countries where you can live longer than expected, just after Mauritius, Seychelles and Cape Verde.
      • Gordon-Conwell Seminary's Center for the Study of Global Christianity ranked São Tomé and Príncipe as having the highest percentage of Christians (at 96%) in Africa. Other sites estimate that 87% of the population is nominally Christian, but only 4.3% is evangelical. A huge majority of the citizens claim Catholicism, but syncretism is prevalent among Christians, as it is among the 2% of the population that is Muslim.
      • Sao Tome and Principe has the second highest literacy rate in Africa. In this country, 92 per cent of all individuals over the age of 15 are able to comprehend what they read and write.
      • One must be 18 years of age to drink and drive in the São Tomé and Príncipe (not at the same time, obviously).
      • São Tome and Principe is one of the world "least visited Must Go Destinations". The right place if you want to go off the radar to a hidden paradise in a tropical islands no-one has heard of. The few tourists that visit the island, mostly Portuguese, enjoy unspoiled landscapes and a warm tropical climate. You're guaranteed a tourist-free adventure...

São Tomé & Principe Featured as Top Destination

São Tome and Principe is one of the world "least visited Must Go Destinations". The right place if you want to go off the radar to a hidden paradise in a tropical islands no-one has heard of. The few tourists that visit the island, mostly Portuguese, enjoy unspoiled landscapes and a warm tropical climate. You're guaranteed a tourist-free adventure...

We are featured in all(most) The world's Top 10 travel destination ranking. See by yourself.

 

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VisitSaoTome (VST)

We aim to promote the island of São Tomé and it capital city as the west africa most unspoiled and fascinting destination.

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