Reunion is located on a volcanic island in the Marklin Islands in the western Indian Ocean. Reunion Island covers an area of 2,512 square kilometers and has a population of 250,000. Reunion Island is 63 km long and 45 km wide. In addition to Caucasians, there are also blacks and Indians on Reunion Island. Reunion Island is home to approximately 30,000 Chinese.
Reunion
Reunion
Reunion
The economy of Reunion Island is dominated by agriculture, fishing and tourism. Agricultural cash crops on Reunion Island are sugar cane, vanilla. The industrial base is relatively weak, and the main industry is sugar production. The economy of Reunion Island is now largely dependent on French economic aid, and France now includes Reunion Island as a French overseas department. Tourism is the main industry of Reunion Island, especially Reunion Island has volcanoes, which still erupt frequently, and the volcano can attract a large number of tourists every year.
Reunion
Reunion
In the 16th century, the Portuguese were the first to discover Reunion Island. In 1513, the Portuguese Maskelyn came to the Indian Ocean to explore and stumbled upon a group of unnamed archipelagos. He named the archipelago Musklyn after himself. Reunion Island is one of the archipelagos.
In 1642, the French sent troops to invade Reunion Island, and because France was part of the Bourbon dynasty at that time, the French renamed the island Bourbon.
In 1663, French immigrants from the mainland to Reunion Island, when the French East India Company brought some slaves from Madagascar to Reunion Island as labor. Because Reunion Island is far from the African coastline, it became an important transit point for France in the Indian Ocean, providing supplies and fresh water supplies for French ships.
Reunion
In 1767, King Louis XV of France purchased Reunion Island, and King Louis XV renamed Bourbon Island, which means union and victory in French. France began to grow coffee on a large scale on Reunion Island, where coffee was the main industry at the time.
In 1804, Napoleon established the First French Empire, when France's largest territory controlled almost half of Europe. France was the dominant figure on the European continent at that time. Napoleon adopted a policy of blockade of the coast against Britain. The British Royal Navy dispatched a naval attack on Reunion Island. The British controlled Reunion Island until 1815. In 1815, the Napoleonic Empire was defeated by the Fifth Anti-French Coalition. It was only then that the British handed over Reunion Island to France.
Napoleonic Empire
First French Empire
French Empire
In 1848, France announced the emancipation of slaves in Reunion, which at that time had about 60,000 slaves. At the end of the 19th century, sugar cane began to be cultivated on a large scale on Reunion Island, away from coffee cultivation on a smaller scale. Sugar cane gradually became the main agricultural industry of Reunion.
Reunion
Reunion
In 1914, the First World War broke out on the European continent. France, Great Britain and Russia formed an alliance, and Germany, Hungary and Italy formed an alliance, and the two sides went to war over European domination. Sugar was a strategic substance at that time, and the large-scale cultivation of sugar cane on Reunion Island could provide sugar to France.
In 1940, Germany used blitzkrieg against France, and Germany bypassed France from Adenauer to build the Maginot Line. France resisted for only 6 weeks before surrendering. After Germany entered Paris, it supported Marshal Pétain as a puppet regime of the Vichy government. At that time, Charles de Gaulle formed a French government-in-exile in Britain, and competed with the Vichy government for the support of France's original colonies. Reunion supported de Gaulle's government-in-exile.
Vichy government
French African colonies
General de Gaulle
Now Reunion is a region of France. Although France is a permanent member of the world, France has the only nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world besides the United States, Charles de Gaulle, and has the Mirage 2000 advanced fighter. Due to the serious aging of the French population, France agreed to the immigration of blacks from the original French colonies to France. The proportion of blacks in France is now 20%, and the proportion of blacks is getting higher and higher. Now that the white fertility rate has fallen severely, France will become a black country.