Malabo

Sister cities

• Guadalajara
• Madrid

History

In 1472, in an attempt to find a new route to India, the Portuguese navigator Fernão do Pó, encountered the island of Bioko, which he called Formosa. Later, the island was named after its discoverer, Fernando Pó. At the beginning of the 16th century, specifically in 1507, the Portuguese Ramos de Esquivel made a first attempt at colonization on the island of Fernando Pó. He established a factory in Concepción (now Riaba) and developed plantations of sugarcane. With the Treaties of San Ildefonso in 1777 and El Pardo in 1778, during the reign of the Spanish King Charles III, the Portuguese gave to the Spanish the islands of Fernando Pó, Annobón, and the right to conduct trade in the mainland, an area of influence of approximately 800 000 km2 in Africa, in exchange for the Colonia del Sacramento in Río de la Plata and the Santa Catarina Island off the Brazilian coast (occupied by the Spaniards) during a recent war trying to stop Portuguese expansion in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. The area stretched from the Niger Delta to the mouth of Ogooué River, now in Gabon, and included, besides the islands of Fernando Pó and Annobón, the islets of Corisco and Elobeyes. Spain was uninterested in those lands because it already had vast colonies in other parts of the world, Spain lost interest in Spanish Guinea in 1827 and authorized the British to use the island as a base for suppressing the African slave trade. In 1821, the Nelly approached the island of Fernando Pó. He found it abandoned and founded the establishments of Melville Bay (now Riaba) and San Carlos (now Luba). Some years later, another British captain, William Fitzwilliam Owen, decided to colonize the island and in the north of it — on the site of the present capital — erected a base for British ships…

Geography

Malabo is situated in the north of the island of Bioko, at coordinates 3° 45' 7.43" North and 8° 46' 25.32" East. The south of Malabo is limited by the Cónsul River and just across the river, south-west, is the hospital. West of the city, located about 9 km from the center of Malabo, is renewed Malabo International Airport. In the coastal region north of the city are the bays and capes. The elder is the punta de la Unidad Africana located just behind the Malabo Government Building and which occupies the entire eastern part of the Bay of Malabo. Another cape of importance is punta Europa located in the west of the city near to the airport. Malabo features a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am). Malabo receives on average of rain per year. The city has a pronounced, albeit short, sunnier (but still cloudy) dry season from December through February. January is normally its driest month with of rain falling on average. It also has a very long cloudy wet season that covers the remaining nine months from March to November. On average, the months hit hardest by the wet season are September and October, which receive of rain and showers between them. Daytime temperatures do not vary at all day to day, and vary only a few degrees throughout the entire year. At night, the average low temperature is in every month of the year but January to April have a slightly higher diurnal range because it is clearer. Nonetheless, with only 1,020 hours of sunshine per year, Malabo is one of the cloudiest, wettest and most lightning-prone capitals of the world, and experiences much fog and haze even when it is not raining in the driest months.

Most-observed species

• Northern Double-collared Sunbird

  Cinnyris reichenowi Sharpe, 1891 · Aves
  100
• Pied Crow

  Corvus albus Statius Muller, 1776 · Aves
  93
• Village Weaver

  Ploceus cucullatus (Statius Muller, 1776) · Aves
  82
• Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird

  Pogoniulus bilineatus (Sundevall, 1850) · Aves
  79
• Yellow-billed Turaco

  Tauraco macrorhynchus (Fraser, 1839) · Aves
  76
• Northern Gray-headed Sparrow

  Passer griseus (Vieillot, 1817) · Aves
  74
• African Palm-Swift

  Cypsiurus parvus (M.H.K.Lichtenstein, 1823) · Aves
  69
• Gray Apalis

  Apalis cinerea (Sharpe, 1891) · Aves
  69