Hey, guys! I know this country is also known as "Cabo Verde".
Look, I already made the Cambodia video.
Just, just deal with it! I can't turn back time!
It’s time to learn Geography…
NOW!!!
Hey, Geogra-peeps! I'm your host, Barby.
Welcome to one of the few places in the world I like to call a "halfrican" country.
We'll explain more about that in a bit.
But first...
The flag consists of a blue field with three horizontal bands, of red and white, in the lower portion of the flag,
and 10 stars, in a circular pattern, overlapping the bands on the left side.
The blue represents the ocean and the sky,
the white represents the road to construction and development of the nation,
and the red represents the effort of the people.
And the ten stars represent each of the 10 main islands that make up the nation.
Moving on!
Now, I love island nations because, generally, you don't have to worry about border disparities.
(Haiti and the Dominican Republic, you guys are killin' me...)
But also because you get to expound on each individual island in the nation's sovereignty
as separate entities.
Unless if the nation is only on one island, which is why Barbados was so frustrating.
Which, by the way...
Rihanna, you still haven't hit me up yet!
ANYWAY!
Cape Verde is located off of the west coast of Africa, about 400 nautical miles from Senegal.
And, remember, people, nautical miles are longer than regular miles,
and it has something to do with the curvature of the earth...
I don’t know!
I’m not one of those people that… Does the teaching for… Of that…
Expert-ing.. Thing.
Cape Verde is in the southernmost part of the Macaronesia ecoregion,
in the archipelagos all along the coast of Africa,
including the Canary, Madeira and Azores islands.
Cape Verde is the only fully sovereign state in these islands,
and the rest are owned by either Spain or Portugal.
The country is made up of a cluster of 10 main islands, shaped into a sideways "V" or a horseshoe.
Furthermore, the islands are regionally split up into two separate groups:
the upper Barlavento islands – Santo Antão, São Vicente, Santa Luzia, São Nicolau, Sal and Boa Vista –,
as well as the lower Sotavento islands – Maio, Santiago, Fogo and Brava.
The islands are split up into 22 municipalities.
Only 4 islands have multiple municipalities.
And, home to about one fifth of the entire country's population,
the capital, Praia, is located on the lower and largest island of Santiago.
Santiago, in itself, has about 40% of the population of the entire country,
and the next most populous one is São Vicente.
The least populated one being Santa Luzia, which has no permanent population,
and is home to a nature reserve, but is still considered one of the main islands.
Also, keep in mind, Cape Verde also has many minor islands and islets that they really don't talk about much.
Like, Ilhéu Branco, Ilhéu Raso, Ilhéu Rabo de Junco – off of Sal Island –,
Ilhéu de Sal Rei, and Ilhéu de Cima – off of Brava.
By the way, that shipwreck off of Boavista doesn’t count.
Neither does this strange cluster of converging waves that I thought was an island but found out it wasn’t.
Yeah, guys, I like to scan Google Maps a lot.
It’s very therapeutic for me.
These islands have quite a story behind them, wrapped up in both social and physical features.
The latter one we will discuss in…
The thing about Cape Verde is that you kinda see this "landscape-feature-pattern" shift go from east to west.
The eastern islands of Maio, Sal and Boa Vista, are flat and arid with a desertlike terrain,
whereas the western islands are generally rockier, holding substantially larger portions of vegetation.
The reason for this is that, even though the islands are off the coast of mainland Africa,
Cape Verve is still affected by the Sahelian arid belt, which is part of the Sahel
Or, that messed up battleground between the Sahara and savannahs of Africa,
that we already discussed, like two episodes ago.
Hi! If you’re new to this channel just pause the video and then open up another tab
and look up Benin and Burkina Faso on this channel.
And then come back here. Alright? Cool.
The thing is, the hot, dry eroding Harmattan winds meander all the way off the coast.
and sweep across the easternmost islands of Cape Verde.
That’s why these three islands are dry and desertlike.
The western islands, however,
although still relatively dry,
still have steep hills and mountains
that harbor trees and grasses and bushes and plants.
This is also where most of the agricultural sector can be found,
most notably on the greenest island, Brava.
With a lack of water sources though,
arable land only makes up about 10% of the country.
Soil is good,
but when sparsely timed rainfall DOES come,
it typically comes in the form of violent storms
that wash off the top soil from higher grounds into the sea.
The strange thing is
the country doesn’t receive cold streams that typically affect the rest of western Africa.
So, even though the temperature is generally cooler,
the water is still warm.
The issue with that though is that it kinda makes Cape Verde the perfect factory for creating…
...hurricanes.
Now here is where Cape Verde is kinda like a little rascal.
Even though they themselves are almost never really affected by hurricanes,
Cape Verde’s warm waters and cool air breed some of the most violent and intense westbound hurricanes
that eventually hit the Caribbean and east coast of North America.
Hey-ey, Cape Verde, no!
Put down that moisture and just… No, put it down! Put it down!
Did I do that...?
I’m not saying Cape Verde WANTS to create these hurricanes.
I’m just saying sometimes they go into a dissociative state while committing international atrocities.
Cape Verde only has three volcanoes, only one of which is still active, on Fogo island.
The highest peak in the country, Pico do Fogo, last erupted in 2014.
Now, if you look at Fogo island it’s pretty creepy because you can tell how big the volcano used to be
until the caldera disintegrated into a massive crater,
with flanks and fissures to the east that dispersed into the sea.
Now, despite the lush green areas, they do lack a lot of resources
and the majority of the economy is service-oriented.
Now, let’s talk about who’s doing the service.
Sometimes you can really read a lot about a country based off of the people who live there.
Ethnic makeup can kinda tell you a little bit of a story.
And Cape Verde has quite a story...
When it comes to Cape Verde, the country has a little bit over half a million people.
About 2 out of every 5 live on Santiago island.
The country’s ethnic makeup is pretty unique in that – kinda like Brazil –
the country experienced a whole societal generation shift
in which they kinda created a whole new “race”, so to speak.
As a former Portuguese colony, and short-lived Portuguese province overseas,
Cape Verde has absorbed not just a lot of Portuguese influence but blood too.
Intermarriages and relations between the Portuguese and Africans
that were brought over hundreds of years ago
eventually led to the country experiencing an entire people group of mixed ancestry.
Many of these people are referred to as “mestiços” or the Creole.
Many have claimed that Cape Verdean creoles are some of the most beautiful people in the world,
with features that you pretty much can’t find anywhere else.
It’s not uncommon for a person to have dark brown skin, hinting at the African ancestry,
but with blond hair and blue or green eyes, and slight Germanic features.
That being said,
Creoles make up somewhere around 80% of the population,
whereas Africans make up about 23%,
– the remaining 2% being mainly white.
But a sizeable community of Asians and Arabs exist as well.
Sociologically speaking, Cape Verde is almost kinda like a cross between Brazil and Haiti,
in which ethnically they’ve kind of developed their own racial identity,
but also they’ve created their own Creole language.
The problem is, unlike Haiti though,
Cape Verdean Creole had problems with becoming standardized,
and especially since the dialect differed from island to island.
Now, the funny thing is,
there’s actually more Cape Verdean people living outside of Cape Verde than in it.
The US alone has a population of Cape Verdeans, mostly along the New England coast,
that almost matches the entire population of Cape Verde itself, at around 500,000.
And that’s just the US.
You have hundreds of thousands of Cape Verdeans living in other places abroad,
like Angola, Portugal, Senegal, France, Spain, Italy…
Even Luxembourg, for some reason!
And that’s just the generation after 1975.
Prior to independence, Cape Verdeans had Portuguese passports,
so it’s hard to get an exact number, but, overall, these guys know how to spread out…
Of course as a Lusophone country…
Hey, guys!
That word that I just used, “Lusophone”, it means: speaking Portuguese.
Just for future reference.
…like Angola and São Tomé and Princípe,
Cape Verde has a culture distinct, yet noticeably influenced by the Portuguese.
The Education system – the second best in all of Africa, after South Africa –
does follow the Portuguese format.
However, in 2010, all universities switched to the 4-year American bachelor degree program,
instead of 5 years, which made students very happy.
Island-individual-wise, you do see a slight contrast between peoples in each area.
Due to the high diaspora population,
each island kind of chooses which country it wants to be prevalently influenced by.
Some lean more towards Portugal, some towards the US, some Netherlands and even Brazil.
This has led to a renaissance of innovatively produced Cape Verdean music and dance,
the hallmark national tone being the “morna” – a melancholic rhythm typically sung in Creole.
Nonetheless, leading poet, Jorge Barbosa,
kind of summarizes the islands in his 1935 publication of “Arquipélago”.
Look it up yourselves, guys!
The poem is like 200 lines long, and reading it to you is not my job!
Anyway, the thing about Cape Verde is that it’s incredibly unique
in that it has such a cross-cultural complexity.
It’s not quite African and it’s not quite Portuguese,
yet it’s somewhat half of each;
hence, “halfrican”.
They’re proud of it and they’ve long thought of themselves as having the best of both worlds,
between Europe and Africa.
Harmony is such a beautiful thing, especially in the…
Ok, so without even really having to explain much,
you can kinda pretty much guess how much Portugal plays into their international engagements.
First of all, yes, Portugal is a key player in Cape Verde’s inner circle.
Not just because of their ancestry, but because of their support diplomatically and economically.
Even after they gained independence they still remain close and appreciate each other’s company.
The US harbors the largest Cape Verdean community outside of Cape Verde
and has historically invested in the country’s welfare, even before independence.
Out of the 10 international destinations that their national airline flies to,
two of them are actually in the US
– one in Boston and one in Providence, Rhode Island.
Lusosphere nations, like Brasil, and Angola, and São Tomé and Príncipe,
get along with Cape Verde as well.
Trade and travel between these nations is not uncommon.
However, the best friend of Cape Verde would probably be Guinea-Bissau.
These two countries actually were part of the same country after independence,
but then, after a coup in Guinea-Bissau, in 1981, the two countries split, but still remain close in ties.
They have similar Creole cultures, languages and backgrounds,
and to this day Cape Verdeans consider Guinea-Bissau their brother country.
In conclusion, you have a beautifully mixed people, living in a beautifully mixed culture,
on a sociopathic chain of islands that shoots out hurricanes.
Stay tuned! The Central African Republic is coming up next.