Fogo (Portuguese for "fire") is an island in the Sotavento group of Cape Verde. It is the most prominent of the group, rising to nearly 3,000 m (10,000 ft) above sea level at Pico do Fogo.

Geography

The island is located between the islands of Santiago and Brava. Practically the whole island is an active volcano that has been periodically active, last erupting in 1995, forming a new crater called Pico Pequeno. Its largest feature is a 9 km wide caldera, which has walls 1 km high. The caldera has a breach in its eastern rim, and a large peak rises in the centre. The central cone forms the highest point of the island and its summit is about 100 m higher than the surrounding wall of the caldera. Lava from the volcano has reached the eastern coast of the island within historical times.

A small village, called Chã das Caldeiras, exists within the caldera of the volcano, and the residents are periodically evacuated during eruptions.

The island's main city is São Filipe, near which is an airport. First settled in the 1480s, it is largely an agricultural island. The islands also houses schools, a gymnasium, banks, a post office, some hotels and squares (praças).

Fogo has fertile land in the southwest with a slope of about 10 to 15 degrees. The north and the east are slopey. The entire island is a seamount, called the Cadamosto Seamount, and the surrounding ocean can be as deep as 5,300 m at a distance of 5 km from the shoreline. The exception is to the west, but it is connected with another seamount further west in Brava.

The slopes in the northeastern part are green and grassy all-year round. The rest of the mountain is dry and barren. One of the southernmost islands in Cape Verde, Fogo receives the most precipitation. The creeks and streams are dry all-year round.

São Filipe's buildings use classic Portuguese colonial architecture. Mosteiros in the northeast is the island's second most important town.

A violent eruption took place in 1680. The mountain of the island was visible over hundreds of kilometres and lasted for a few years. It was during this eruption that the island earned its name.

Flora

There are various endemic plants on Fogo:

Crabo bravo (Erysimum caboverdiana)

Língua de vaca (Echium vulcanorum)

Losma (Artemisia gorgonum), a medical plant with a bitter taste.

Totolho (Euphorbia tuckeyana).

History

Fogo was discovered in 1460 by a Genovese captain António Noli and was first called São Filipe meaning Saint Philip in Portuguese.

The Portuguese settled the island in 1500. The island used to have slavery. Emigration started in 1850, mainly to North America. The 1910 civil revolution in Portugal drew aristocracy and large landowners back to Portugal and left civilians behind. A small museum on Fogo explains many of these connections.

credited to wikipedia