Seychelles, a small group of islands in the Indian Ocean, has a land area of just 176 square miles (456 sq km).
The island country is an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, approximately 932 miles east of mainland Africa.
Arab traders were the first to visit the uninhabited islands, and the earliest recorded sighting of Seychelles by Europeans was in 1502 by Portuguese Admiral Vasco da Gama.
The Seychelles islands were used occasionally by pirates until the French took control in 1756, and were named after Jean Moreau de Séchelles, Louis XV’s Minister of Finance.
Seychelles has an estimated population of about 84,000 people in 2010.
