Boa Vista, Cape Verde

Etymology

In the 19th century, the English called Boa Vista, Bonavisa.

Geography

With an area of 620 km², it is the third largest island, after Santo Antão and Santiago. It is 455 km west of the coast of Africa. Much of the island is flat. The highest point on the island is Monte Estância, elevation 387 meters; other mountains include Santo António (Saint Anthony) and Monte Negro (Black Mountain). Other features include Campo da Serra. Its main town is Sal Rei, its ferry port and home to Boa Vista's airport (Rabil Airport)on the northwest side of the island.

Surrounding islets include Ilhéu de Sal Rei featuring a lighthouse in the west, and Ilhéu do Baluarte featuring the easternmost point in Cape Verde. Points include Ponta Antónia to the north.

Population

As of the mid-19th century, the population was estimated at 4,000. While most of the population live in Sal Rei, there are many small settlements with 10 to 100 people; others are abandoned. It has the smallest population of all of inhabited Cape Verde’s islands, and it is the least-dense populated in the archipelago.

The population steadily grew up to the 1900s, drought and famine affected the population and many of the population immigrated in the final decades of Portuguese rule that started from the 1930s, the population grew around 10% each decade. Emigration dropped the population by over 150 between 1970 and 1980, in 1990, the population added only 80, the population started to rise large for the first time, after the end of the 20th century, the population was 4,209, nearly equal to the 19th century population, construction of hotels, villas and a stadium made a record breaking growth and reached 8,554 in 2010, an addition of over 100%, the estimate population has now reached over 10,000.

Economy

Its economy was originally based on agriculture, but desertification led to salt collection becoming more important. Its main industries today are date farming and, increasingly, tourism, with already several touristic establishments being built in recent times. As of July 2015, the island boasts the highest income per capita [i.e., US$8819,00] in the island nation.

Politics

The Camara Municipal is the main government institution of the island. The current President is José Pinto Almeida, MPD party.

At the federal level, it has two seats, in the 2011 elections, it had a PAICV and a MpD seat. In the 2016 elections, MpD won more than 80% in the island.

Boavista is twinned with the town of Zocca on May 9, 2014.

Attractions and amenities

Boa Vista has a college (colegio), a middle school, high school, churches, beaches, large hotels and a port which underwent expansion in the early to mid 2010s. Other hotels and villas had popped up in the west and south of the island, hotels and villas popped up in around 2004 west of Rabil and in 2009 in Curral Velho and connected them with newly paved roads.

Transportation

Since 2009, the island has 50.66 km of paved roads, 29.2 km are national and numbers 2 and 21.46 are municipal with four.

National highways

Sporting teams

Notable residents