Sao Tome and Principe with the capital city São Tomé is located in Africa (Western Africa, islands in the Gulf of Guinea). It covers some 1,001 square kilometres (more than five times the size of Washington, DC) with 205,000 citizens.

About the flag and history of Sao Tome and Principe

Three horizontal bands of green (top), yellow (double width), and green with two black five-pointed stars placed side by side in the center of the yellow band and a red isosceles triangle based on the hoist side; green stands for the country's rich vegetation, red recalls the struggle for independence, and yellow represents cocoa, one of the country's main agricultural products; the two stars symbolize the two main islands note: uses the popular Pan-African colors of Ethiopia.

Discovered and claimed by Portugal in the late 15th century, the islands'' sugar-based economy gave way to coffee and cocoa in the 19th century - all grown with African plantation slave labor, a form of which lingered into the 20th century. While independence was achieved in 1975, democratic reforms were not instituted until the late 1980s. The country held its first free elections in 1991, but frequent internal wrangling between the various political parties precipitated repeated changes in leadership and two failed coup attempts in 1995 and 2003. In 2012, three opposition parties combined in a no confidence vote to bring down the majority government of former Prime Minister Patrice TROVOADA. The new government of Prime Minister Gabriel Arcanjo Ferreira DA COSTA is entirely composed of opposition party members with limited experience in governance. The recent discovery of oil in the Gulf of Guinea promises to attract increased attention to the small island nation.

National administrative regions of Sao Tome and Principe

• Principe
• Sao Tome Island

Geography Quick-Facts

List of current world heritage sites