Mauritius
The tropical Indian Ocean island and rainbow nation, a peaceful meeting of Indian, African, Chinese, and European peoples and of Hindu, Christian, and Muslim faiths, home of Creole, Sega, and a famous multicultural harmony. The complete guide.
Mauritius is a small tropical island country in the Indian Ocean, lying off the eastern coast of Africa, east of Madagascar, with about one and a third million people and a capital at Port Louis. A beautiful volcanic island ringed by coral reefs, white beaches, and turquoise lagoons, it is famous as a paradise for visitors and as one of the most successful and best-governed nations in Africa. Above all, Mauritius is known as a rainbow nation, a remarkable meeting place of peoples and faiths, where the descendants of Indian, African, Chinese, and European settlers, of Hindu, Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist traditions, live together in peace and harmony on one small island. With no original native population, every Mauritian traces their roots to somewhere else, and out of this mixing has come a rich shared culture of many languages, a fusion cuisine, and the island's own music, the Sega. This guide walks through the land, the peoples, the faiths, the food, the festivals, and the customs in turn.
Overview
Mauritius is an island country in the Indian Ocean, lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, to the east of the large island of Madagascar, far out in the warm tropical sea. The country is made up of the main island of Mauritius, where almost everyone lives, along with the smaller island of Rodrigues and some far-flung outer islands. It is a small, green, volcanic island ringed by coral reefs and beaches, with a capital and main city at Port Louis on the northwest coast, and about one and a third million people.
Mauritius is a republic and a parliamentary democracy, modelled on the British system, widely regarded as one of the most stable, free, and well-run nations in Africa. The head of state is a ceremonial president, currently Dharam Gokhool, and the head of government is the prime minister, currently Navin Ramgoolam. The country has no single official language in everyday life: English is the official language of government, French is widely used, and the mother tongue of almost everyone is Mauritian Creole. The population is wonderfully diverse, and Mauritius is the only country in Africa where Hinduism is the largest religion, alongside large Christian and Muslim communities.
A few deep forces shape life in Mauritius. There is the beautiful tropical island in the Indian Ocean. There is the unusual history of an empty island peopled entirely by newcomers. There is the famous rainbow nation of many races and faiths living in harmony. There is the rich mix of languages, religions, food, and music born of that mingling. And there is the warm, easygoing, tolerant Mauritian spirit. The sections that follow trace these and walk through the customs.
A tropical island in the Indian Ocean
Mauritius is a small, beautiful tropical island, of volcanic birth, set in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and almost entirely encircled by coral reefs that enclose calm, clear lagoons of brilliant turquoise. The coasts are lined with white sandy beaches, and inland the land rises through fields of sugar cane to dramatic jagged mountains, green forests, waterfalls, and crater lakes, giving the small island a striking and varied beauty that has made it one of the world's most famous holiday paradises.
The climate is warm and tropical all year, cooled by the ocean breezes, with a hot, wetter summer and a milder, drier winter, and the rhythm of the seasons, including the threat of cyclones, shapes island life. For centuries the land was given over above all to sugar cane, whose green fields still cover much of the island and which long was the heart of the economy, and the old sugar estates, factories, and chimneys are part of the landscape and the history.
Mauritius holds a famous place in natural history as the home of the dodo, the large flightless bird found nowhere else, which was hunted and driven to extinction within decades of the first human settlement, becoming the world's most famous symbol of a lost species, and a national emblem of the island. The capital, Port Louis, a bustling harbour city, is the island's heart of trade and government, while the cooler central towns and the coastal villages spread across the small and crowded land. The beautiful tropical island is the setting of Mauritian life.
The peopling of a new land
Mauritius has an unusual history that explains everything about its people: when the first settlers arrived, the island was completely empty of human inhabitants, with no native population at all, so that every single Mauritian today is descended from people who came from somewhere else, brought to the island over the past few centuries. This makes Mauritius a wholly created society, a new nation woven entirely from newcomers, unlike almost any other country.
The island was known to Arab and then European sailors, and was settled first by the Dutch, who gave it its name and hunted the dodo to extinction, then by the French in the eighteenth century, who founded Port Louis and brought enslaved Africans and Malagasy people to work the land, and finally by the British, who took the island in the early nineteenth century. When slavery was abolished, the British brought hundreds of thousands of indentured labourers from India to work the sugar plantations, and later traders came from China.
Out of these waves of arrival, the Africans and Malagasy brought in slavery, the great numbers of Indians brought as labourers, the French and other Europeans, and the Chinese traders, grew the diverse population of modern Mauritius. The descendants of the Indian labourers became the largest group, and the island won its independence from Britain in 1968, becoming a republic in 1992. This story, of an empty island peopled by Africans, Indians, Europeans, and Chinese, of slavery and indenture and immigration, is the foundation of the Mauritian nation and its remarkable diversity.
The rainbow nation
Mauritius is famous as a rainbow nation, one of the most strikingly diverse societies on earth for its size, where peoples of Indian, African, European, and Chinese descent, of many faiths and traditions, live together in peace on one small island, in a harmony that Mauritians are proud of and that the world admires. The largest group are the Indo-Mauritians, descendants of the Indian labourers, both Hindu and Muslim; then the Creoles, descendants mainly of the enslaved Africans and Malagasy, of mixed heritage; the Franco-Mauritians of French descent; and the Sino-Mauritians of Chinese origin.
What makes Mauritius remarkable is not just this diversity but the peaceful way the communities live side by side, keeping their own distinct cultures, religions, languages, and customs while sharing one island, one nation, and a great deal of common ground. Mauritians take real pride in their tradition of tolerance and harmony, joining freely in one another's festivals and celebrations, and the mixing of cultures has created a shared Mauritian way of life that belongs to all.
The communities remain distinct, and each holds its own heritage dear, yet they are bound together by a shared Mauritian identity, the common Creole language, and a genuine spirit of coexistence. Mauritians are known as warm, friendly, welcoming, and easygoing people, quick to smile and to make a visitor feel at home, and respectful of one another's ways. In manners, courtesy and respect for others' customs matter, above all at the many places of worship, where modest dress and the removing of shoes are expected. This famous harmony of many peoples is the proudest feature of the Mauritian nation.
A meeting of faiths
Mauritius is a land of many religions living side by side, and the island's skyline of Hindu temples, Christian churches, Muslim mosques, and Chinese pagodas, often within sight of one another, is a vivid sign of its religious diversity and tolerance. Uniquely in Africa, the largest faith in Mauritius is Hinduism, brought by the Indian labourers and followed by about half the people, alongside a large Christian community, mostly Roman Catholic, a significant Muslim minority, and smaller numbers of Buddhists and others.
Faith is woven deeply into Mauritian life, and the island's most striking religious sight is the sacred crater lake of Grand Bassin, known as Ganga Talao, high in the mountains, the holiest Hindu site in Mauritius, where a great statue of Shiva stands and to which hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims walk, many barefoot, each year for the festival of Maha Shivaratri, in one of the largest such gatherings outside India. The Tamil community keeps its own vivid traditions, and the island's temples, with their colourful carved towers, are landmarks across the land.
The Christian churches, led by the Catholic cathedral in Port Louis, serve the Creole and Franco-Mauritian communities; the mosques call the Muslim community to prayer; and the Chinese pagodas honour the traditions of the Sino-Mauritians. What is most remarkable is the harmony among the faiths, for Mauritius has a deep tradition of religious tolerance, freedom of worship is protected, and disputes between religions are rare, with people of all faiths joining in one another's festivals. This peaceful meeting of the world's great religions on one small island is a defining feature of Mauritius.
A nation of many tongues
Mauritius is a land of many languages, and most Mauritians speak several, switching easily between them in daily life, a rich multilingualism that reflects the island's diverse origins. The mother tongue of almost everyone, and the true common language that binds the nation together, is Mauritian Creole, known as Morisien, a warm and lively language born on the island, based largely on French but woven through with African, Indian, and other words, spoken by nearly the whole population across every community.
Alongside Creole, the island uses English and French in a curious division of roles inherited from its history. English is the official language of government, the law, and much of education, though relatively few speak it as a first language; French, the legacy of the French period, is widely spoken and dominates the press, books, and much of cultural life, and many Mauritians move easily between French and Creole. The result is a society at home in two or three European-rooted languages at once.
Added to these are the ancestral languages of the island's communities, taught, kept, and used in worship and at home, including the Indian languages such as Bhojpuri, long widely spoken in the countryside, along with Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and Marathi, and the Chinese tongues of the Sino-Mauritians. This wealth of languages, with Creole at its heart as the shared voice of the nation, is one of the most distinctive features of Mauritian life and a living sign of the island's mingled heritage.
Sega and the ravanne
The heartbeat of Mauritian music and dance is the Sega, the island's own folk music, born long ago among the enslaved Africans and Malagasy, who sang and danced it to express their sorrows and joys, and which has grown into the national music and dance of all Mauritius, a treasured symbol of identity recognised by the world as a cultural treasure of humanity. The Sega is sung in Creole, with lyrics that speak of love, daily life, hardship, and the island, and it is danced with a distinctive rhythmic, sliding, hip-swaying movement, the feet never lifting from the ground.
The sound of the Sega comes from its traditional instruments, above all the ravanne, a large round drum made of goatskin stretched over a wooden frame and warmed by fire before playing, joined by the maravanne, a rattle, and the triangle, building an infectious rhythm that makes it almost impossible to stay still. Dancers in bright costumes, the women in wide floral skirts, perform the Sega at celebrations, on the beaches, and at festivals across the island, and a Sega evening is one of the great pleasures of Mauritian life.
Born of African roots, the Sega is the cultural voice above all of the Creole community, but it belongs now to the whole nation. In modern times it has blended with other styles to create new forms, most famously Seggae, a fusion of Sega and reggae. Alongside the Sega, the island enjoys the music and dance of all its communities, the Indian and Chinese traditions and the sounds of the wider world. The Sega, with the beat of the ravanne, is the stirring rhythm of the island and a proud emblem of Mauritius.
Dholl puri and the Mauritian table
Mauritian food is one of the great pleasures of the island and a delicious expression of its mingled cultures, a fusion cuisine that brings together the flavours of India, Africa, China, and France on a single plate, so that a Mauritian meal may draw on all of them at once. The island's much-loved everyday street food shows this mixing best, above all the famous dholl puri, a soft flatbread filled with ground yellow split peas, served with bean curry, pickles, and fiery chutney, a beloved snack eaten by everyone.
The Indian heritage runs deep in the food, in the curries, the fragrant biryani known as briani, served at weddings and feasts, the rotis and flatbreads, and the snacks such as the gateaux piments, little fried chilli cakes of split peas. From the French came a love of fine cooking and dishes such as daube and bouillon, adapted to island ingredients; from China, the noodles, fried rice, and stir-fries woven into everyday eating; and from the Creole tradition, the rougaille, a rich tomato-based sauce cooked with fish, meat, or sausage, a staple of the island table.
Seafood and fish from the surrounding ocean feature widely, and tropical fruits, chillies, and fresh local produce flavour the cooking, while the bustling markets, above all the great central market of Port Louis, overflow with spices, vegetables, fruit, and street food. Because the island is home to Hindus and Muslims, beef and pork are less common in much cooking. Bringing together the tastes of four continents in one small island kitchen, Mauritian food is a vibrant and delicious reflection of the rainbow nation.
Diwali, Cavadee, and the Mauritian year
The Mauritian calendar is filled with festivals, a colourful round of religious celebrations from all the island's communities, kept with great enthusiasm and, in the island's tradition of harmony, often shared and enjoyed across the different faiths. The Hindu festivals fill much of the year, above all Diwali, the festival of lights, when homes across the island glow with lamps and candles, and Maha Shivaratri, when the great pilgrimage to the sacred lake of Grand Bassin draws hundreds of thousands of devotees.
The Tamil community keeps the dramatic festival of Thaipoosam Cavadee, when devotees, having fasted and prayed, carry ornate decorated arches and pierce their bodies with needles and skewers in acts of devotion, a striking and solemn spectacle. The Muslim community marks the holy month of Ramadan and the festival of Eid; the Chinese community celebrates the Chinese New Year with firecrackers, lion dances, and the giving of cakes; and the Christian community keeps Christmas, Easter, and the New Year, enjoyed across the island.
Woven through the year, too, are the national days that all Mauritians share: Independence Day in March, marking the birth of the free nation, and the solemn commemoration of the abolition of slavery, which honours the island's painful history and the Creole heritage. Through all these festivals runs the warmth of family and community, for the family is at the centre of Mauritian life, close and important across every culture, and the festivals are above all times of gathering, feasting, and togetherness. This shared calendar of many faiths is a vivid sign of the harmony of Mauritius.
The nation today
Mauritius today is one of the great success stories of Africa, a stable, peaceful, and prosperous island democracy, often ranked as the best-governed and freest country on the continent and one of its wealthiest, with a high standard of living and a well-educated people. It is governed from Port Louis by a president, Dharam Gokhool, and a prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, and it has built a strong and diversified economy that has moved beyond its old reliance on sugar to embrace tourism, textiles, financial services, and technology, marketing itself as a bridge between Africa and Asia.
The nation faces the questions of a modern small island state. It weighs the future of its economy, the cost of living, the protection of its beautiful but fragile environment and reefs, and the challenge of sustaining its harmony and prosperity. In recent times the island has also seen the long-disputed Chagos Islands, taken from it under British rule, set to return to Mauritian control, a matter of deep national feeling. Its small size and its exposure to the wider world keep the search for a secure future at the front of national life.
Through it all, Mauritius holds firmly to the identity built over its short but rich history. The beautiful tropical island still shapes its life; the remarkable harmony of its many peoples and faiths remains its proudest achievement; the wealth of languages, the fusion food, the festivals of every faith, and the rhythm of the Sega still fill its days; and the warm, tolerant, welcoming Mauritian spirit still binds the nation together. Diverse, peaceful, and proud of its rainbow heritage, Mauritius carries its traditions of harmony into the future.