Henrietta Rasser, age 15, of Chattanooga, Tenn., for her question:
WHERE IS THE COUNTRY NAMED SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE?
Sao Tome and Principe is the name of an African country that consists of two main islands and several smaller islands. The two main islands, Sao Tome Island and Principe Island, give the tiny country its name.
Sao Tome and Principe is located in the Gulf of Guinea, about 180 miles west of Libreville, Gabon, on the African mainland. Total land area of Sao Tome and Principe is 372 square miles. This is less than one third the size of Rhode Island.
Sao Tome Island is the largest of the two islands and accounts for almost 90 percent of the nation's people as well as 90 percent of the entire country's area.
Most of the approximately 90,000 people of Sao Tome and Principe live in rural areas and work on farms. The city of Sao Tome, on Sao Tome Island, is the nation's capital and largest city.
Sao Tome and Principe is a r9public. The people elect a national assembly and the assembly chooses a president. The president appoints a prime minister and a cabinet to help him run the government.
Sao Tome and Principe became an independent nation in 1975. It previously had been ruled by Portugal for most of the period since the late 1400s. Portuguese explorers discovered the islands in 1470. they were uninhabited at the time.
In about 1485, Portugal began to send convicts, exiles and settlers to the islands. These people tried to raise sugar, which was in great demand in Europe. But because of the great physical labor required, there were not enough of them to produce large sugar crops.
The Portuguese then started to bring slaves from the African mainland to work the sugar plantations. The islands soon ranked among the world's leading sugar producers. And during the 1500s, Sao Tome Island became a center for the African slave trade.
Seventy percent of the people of Sao Tome and Principe are Creoles, persons of mixed black and European ancestry. Africans from mainland countries form the second largest population group. Europeans account for a very small percentage.
Many of the Creoles own small farms or businesses, or work as fishermen or laborers. Some of the Europeans have jobs that require technical or management skills. Most of the Africans work at low paying labor jobs.
Portuguese is the nation's language, but many Creoles and Europeans speak a dialect based on Portuguese as it was spoken hundreds of years ago.
The islands of Sao Tome and Principe are part of a series of extinct volcanoes. The western part of Sao Tome Island rises sharply from the sea and forests grow near the shore. Inland, formations of basalt rock rise steeply toward the center of the island. The land gradually slopes downward from the center to the east coast. There, volcanic ash has formed deep deposits of fertile soil. Principe Island has a similar land pattern.
Sao Tome and Principe lies a little north of the Equator. The country has hot, humid weather from September through May and hot, dry weather from June through August.