Santiago (Cape Verde)

Santiago
	Satellite image
Waters	Atlantic Ocean
Archipelago	Ilhas de Sotavento
Geographical location	15 ° 5 ′ N , 23 ° 37 ′ W Coordinates: 15 ° 5 ′ N , 23 ° 37 ′ W
length	55.6 km
width	27.2 km
surface	991 km²
Highest elevation	Pico da Antónia ; 1394 m
Residents	290,000 ; 293 inhabitants / km²
main place	Praia
	Map of the island

Pico da Antonia, 1394 m high

Family with children in Tarrafal

Banana plantation in the valley of São Domingos

Santiago ( Ilha de Santiago , Eng. " Island of St. Jacob ") is the largest of the Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic .

geography

Santiago belongs to the southern island group of Ilhas de Sotavento (German: " Islands under the wind "). On the largest area (991 km²) and most populous (290,000 Ew.) Of the Cape Verde Islands is also the capital Praia (132,000 Ew.).

The island is of volcanic origin with a high mountainous relief , wide U-valleys , plateaus and witness mountains . The highest point is the Pico da Antónia (1394 m). The mountainous center of the island is relatively rainy and makes Santiago the most agriculturally productive island, while the low coastal regions are desert-like dry.

geology

The geology of Santiago can be stratigraphically divided into six formations (from young to old):

Except for the sedimentary Orgãos lineup ( lahars ) and some calcarenite horizons in the Pico da Antónia lineup is it here exclusively volcanics . The so-called Old Eruptive Complex in the center and south of the island is actually of a Plutonic nature and, with a sub-Miocene ( Burdigalium ) age of around 20 million years BP, represents the underlying basement of Santiago. It was then exposed in a period of intense erosion . In the period 5.5 to 4.5 million years BP ( Lower Pliocene / Zancleum ), the Flamengos Formation , which is composed of lavas , breccias and pyroclastites , followed in a discordant and submarine manner . After a break in volcanic activity, there was a renewed erosion phase with intensive relief leveling. The lahars and lahar-like deposits of the Orgãos formation were formed . The Pico da Antónia Formation , formed between 3.3 and 2.3 million years BP ( Piacenzian to Gelasian ), indicates the shield stage of Santiago. It is characterized by a powerful, submarine or subaeric volcanism of the Hawaii type . The formation can be split into two, with 2.9 to 2.8 million year old submarine lavas in the lower section and 2.6 to 2.3 million year old subaeric lavas in the upper. The Assomada formation in the central part of the island consists of subaeric lava flows. The Monte das Vacas formation at the top is built up from deposits of the Stromboli type with about 50 cinder and ash cones and smaller lava flows that are distributed over the whole island. The last two formations already belong to the post-shield stage and were mined in the Old Pleistocene in the interval 1.1 to 0.7 million years BP.

Petrologically , primitive, strongly undersaturated mafites such as basanites , nephelinites , melanephelinites and melilithites predominate among Santiago's lavas , but more differentiated rocks such as trachytes and phonolites can also be found. The mafic lavas differ only slightly in the individual formations, melanephelinites generally predominate. The rocks are porphyry, with submarine varieties having glass in the base mass . Phenocrystals are usually olivine and clinopyroxene , which change in their proportions depending on the type of rock.

history

The island's first liege lord, Antonio da Noli , had a tiny garrison built in Cidade Velha in 1460 , which was then still called Ribeira Grande . By creolisation the oldest was Creole society of colonial history with Creole as their own language. The transcontinental slave trade made Cidade Velha the second richest city in the Portuguese empire for a century in the 16th century. However, Portugal was unable to adequately protect its colonial possessions. The English, Dutch, French and Spaniards took over the slave trade and Santiago was attacked by pirates several times. After a devastating attack by Jacques Cassard in 1712 , the importance of Cidade Velha declined and ultimately the capital was relocated to the easier to defend and healthier plateau of Praia. The demand of the slave ships for food led to a market-oriented agriculture on the island and the number of slaves grew faster than on the other islands. Slaves, prisoners and exiles who escaped into the mountainous interior of the island (altport .: vadios ) established the Badius culture with a strong cultural, religious and musical identity. The population of Santiago, who are particularly disadvantaged by the Portuguese colonial system, supported Amílcar Cabral's and the PAIGC's struggle for the country's independence ( 1975 ). Santiago has hosted several conferences on Creole cultures .

Since independence, the island's infrastructures (schools, port, airport, roads, etc.) have been expanded to compensate for the historical disadvantage of the main island.

administration

The island belongs to the southern group of the Cape Verde Islands, the Ilhas de Sotavento . It is the most important and most populous island in the country. The administrative center is the capital Praia . The second largest city on the island is Assomada , the administrative center of the Santa Catarina district .

Administratively, Santiago is divided into nine districts ( concelhos ) with a total of eleven parishes ( freguesia ).

Concelho (circle)	Freguesia (Municipality)
Nossa Senhora da Graça	Praia
São Domingos	Nossa Senhora da Luz
São Domingos	Sao Nicolau Tolentino
Santa Catarina	Assomada
Sao Salvador do Mundo	Sao Salvador do Mundo
Santa Cruz	Santiago Maior
São Lourenço dos Órgãos	São Lourenço dos Órgãos
Ribeira Grande de Santiago	Santíssimo Nome de Jesus
Ribeira Grande de Santiago	São João Baptista
São Miguel	Sao Miguel Arcanjo
Santo Amaro Abade	Tarrafal

Economy and tourism

The main industries are agriculture ( corn , sugar cane , bananas , cassava and mango ) and fishing . Larger areas with artificial irrigation can be found e.g. B. near the town of Pedra Badejo on the east coast. The island offers excellent opportunities for hiking (Pico da Antónia and Serra da Malagueta nature reserves), swimming (Tarrafal, Praia Baixo, São Francisco) and for cultural and historical visits (Cidade Velha, Praia).

Individual evidence

↑ Alves, CAM et al .: Estudo geológico, petrológico e vulcanológico da ilha de Santiago (Cabo Verde) . tape 3 . Garcia da Orta, 1979, p. 47-74 .
↑ Gerlach, D. et al .: Magma sources of the Cape Verde archipelago: isotopic and trace element constraints . In: Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta . tape 52 , 1988, pp. 2979-2992 .
↑ Holm, PM et al: An 40Ar-39Ar study of the Cape Verde hot spot: temporal evolution in a semistationary plate environment . In: J. Geophys. Res. Band 113 , 2008, pp. B08201 .
↑ Martins, S .: Chemical and mineralogical evidence of the occurrence of mantle metasomatism by carbonate-rich melts in an oceanic environment (Santiago Island, Cape Verde) . In: Miner. Petrol. Springer, 2009, doi : 10.1007 / s00710-009-0078-x .
^ Reitmaier, Pitt & Fortes, Lucete: Cabo Verde , p.365. Bielefeld 2009.

Web links

Commons : Santiago (Cape Verde) - Collection of images, videos and audio files

[1] Alves, CAM et al .: Estudo geológico, petrológico e vulcanológico da ilha de Santiago (Cabo Verde) . tape 3 . Garcia da Orta, 1979, p. 47-74 .

[2] Gerlach, D. et al .: Magma sources of the Cape Verde archipelago: isotopic and trace element constraints . In: Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta . tape 52 , 1988, pp. 2979-2992 .

[3] Holm, PM et al: An 40Ar-39Ar study of the Cape Verde hot spot: temporal evolution in a semistationary plate environment . In: J. Geophys. Res. Band 113 , 2008, pp. B08201 .

[4] Martins, S .: Chemical and mineralogical evidence of the occurrence of mantle metasomatism by carbonate-rich melts in an oceanic environment (Santiago Island, Cape Verde) . In: Miner. Petrol. Springer, 2009, doi : 10.1007 / s00710-009-0078-x .

[5] Reitmaier, Pitt & Fortes, Lucete: Cabo Verde , p.365. Bielefeld 2009.