Seychelles Districts (original) (raw)

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Updates:

Sorin Cosoveanu furnished a spreadsheet with the results of the 2010 census.

Newsletter II-2, an update to the ISO 3166-2 standard, is dated 2010-06-30. It accommodates the changes made in 1998.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter I-8, published on 2007-04-17, has new ISO commune codes for Seychelles. They are shown in the table below, under the "Change history" heading. They replace codes from a draft version, ISO/DIS 2166-2, which had not been supported.

FIPS Publication Change Notice No. 10, affecting FIPS PUB 10-4, was issued on 2006-03-23. It drops one district, adds three new ones, and changes five. As explained under "Change history", this scenario doesn't quite seem to fit.

Country overview:

Initially a dependency of Mauritius, Seychelles became a separate British colony in 1903-11. It gained independence on 1976-06-29.

Other names of country:

1. Danish: Seychellerne
2. Dutch: Seychellen, Republiek Seychellen (formal)
3. English: Republic of Seychelles (formal)
4. Finnish: Seychellit
5. French: Seychelles fp
6. German: Seychellen fp, Seschellen fp (obsolete)
7. Icelandic: Seychelleseyjar
8. Italian: Seicelle fp, Seychelles
9. Norwegian: Seychellene, Republikken Seychellene (formal) (Bokm�l), Seychellane, Republikken Seychellane (formal) (Nynorsk)
10. Portuguese: Seicheles, Seychelles, Rep�blica f das Seychelles fp (formal)
11. Russian: Республика Сейшельские Острова (formal), Сейшелы (variant)
12. Spanish: Seychelles, Rep�blica f de Seychelles fp (formal)
13. Swedish: Seychellerna
14. Turkish: Seyşeller (informal), Seyşel Adaları Cumhuriyeti (formal)

Origin of name:

named in honor of Marie Jean H�rault de S�chelles, French comptroller at the time of discovery

Primary subdivisions:

Seychelles is divided into 25 districts, plus Outer Islands.

Territorial extent:

The main island of Seychelles is Mah�, where the capital, Victoria, is located. Within 100 km. of it are the Inner Islands: Praslin, Silhouette, La Digue, North, Curieuse, and some smaller islands. The Outer Islands are the Cosmoledo Group, including Aldabra, Assumption, and Astove; the Farquhar Group, including Cerf, Saint Pierre, and Providence; and other scattered islands like Desroches. All of the districts are on Mah� except for Baie Sainte Anne and Grand' Anse (Praslin) on Praslin, and La Digue on La Digue Island.

Recently, some islands off the coast at Victoria have been reclaimed from the sea. They haven't been assigned to any district yet. I included their area under Outer Islands.

The UN LOCODE page for Seychelles lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Origins of names:

1. Mah�: named by Capt. Lazare Picault in honor of Bertrand-Fran�ois Mah�, governor of Mauritius.
2. Praslin: named in 1768 for C�sar Gabriel de Choiseul, duc de Praslin (1712-1785), then French Secretary of the Navy
3. Anse aux Pins: = pine cove (French); casuarina trees, resembling pines, grew there
4. Anse Boileau: after a Captain Boileau who landed there in 1790-06
5. Anse �toile: = star cove (French)
6. Anse Royale: = royal cove (French), for the King's Garden there
7. Au Cap: = at the cape (French)
8. Baie Lazare: after Captain Lazare Picault, who landed there 1742-11-22
9. Baie Sainte Anne: after Sainte Anne Church, located there
10. Beau Vallon: = beautiful dale (French)
11. Bel Air: = fine air (French)
12. Belombre: = beautiful shade (French)
13. Cascade: after a waterfall in the Cascade River
14. Glacis: = slope (French)
15. Grand Anse: = great cove (French)
16. La Digue: = the dike (French)
17. Les Mamelles: = the breasts (French)
18. Mont Buxton: after Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786�1845)
19. Mont Fleuri: = blooming mount (French)
20. Plaisance: = pleasure spot (French)
21. Pointe La Rue: after Madame Larue, early settler
22. Roche Ca�man: = caiman rock (French); the crocodilian species was found there
23. Saint Louis: after Saint Louis College, located there
24. Takamaka: for its takamaka trees

Change history:

1. ~1938: Seychelles consisted of five districts: Central Mah�, North Mah�, Outlying Islands, Praslin, and South Mah�.
2. 1947: Source [1] gives the divisions shown for the 1947 census; source [3], the 1977 census. Victoria is included in Mah� North.

1. 1965-11-08: Islands of Aldabra, Desroches, and Farquhar taken from Seychelles to form part of the new British Indian Ocean Territory.
2. 1967: Seychelles divided into eight electoral areas: East Mah�, La Digue and Outlying Islands, North Mah�, Praslin, South Mah�, Victoria North, Victoria South, and West Mah�.
3. 1976-06-29: Aldabra, Desroches, and Farquhar Islands restored to Seychelles.
4. 1979: Seychelles divided into 23 districts, as shown in the table below. Apparently these districts didn't cover Inner Islands and Outer Islands.

1. 1998: Anse Louis district renamed Au Cap, and new districts of Les Mamelles and Roche Ca�man created. The Virtual Seychelles website says that all three districts were created on reclaimed land, but from the map it seems clear that Au Cap is the same area as the old Anse Louis. The FIPS code changes also seem to imply that Anse Louis district was partitioned into Au Cap, Les Mamelles, and Roche Ca�man, but again the map doesn't support this interpretation.

Other names of subdivisions:

1. Au Cap: Anse Louis (obsolete)
2. Bel Ombre: Belombre (variant)
3. English River: La Rivi�re Anglaise (French)
4. Outer Islands: Coralline Islands (variant)

Sources:

1. [1] Demographic Yearbook , 7th Ed. Statistical Office of the United Nations, New York, 1955 (retrieved 2011-08-20).
2. [2] "Know the Seychelles", http://www.virtualseychelles.sc/pecu/pecu\_districts.htm (dead link, retrieved 2007-04-20).
3. [3] Encyclop�dia Britannica, 15th Edition, Chicago, 1984.
4. [4] Population and Housing Census 2010 Report . National Bureau of Statistics, Victoria, 2012 (retrieved 2013-02-09).