| 1889 Perron map PORT LOUIS, MAURITIUS, INDIAN OCEAN, #29 |
Nice small map titled Port-Louis, from wood engraving with fine detail and clear impression, approx. size with margins is 18.5 x 17 cm. From La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes, 19 vol. (1875-94), great work of Elisee Reclus. Cartographer is Charles Perron.
Port Louis
city, capital, and main port of the island of Mauritius in the
western Indian Ocean. It lies between a well-sheltered, deepwater harbour,
accessible to ships through a break in the coral reef, and a semicircle of
mountains.
Port Louis was founded about 1736 by the French as a calling place for ships
rounding the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) on the passage between Asia and
Europe. British occupation of the island during the Napoleonic Wars (1800–15)
was a strategic factor in securing control of the Indian Ocean, but the opening
of the Suez Canal in 1869 resulted in the port being bypassed by shipping. Port
activity increased during the closure of the Suez Canal (1967–75), and the
harbour was modernized in the late 1970s. The city is the central collecting and
clearing point for all imports and exports from Mauritius and its dependencies
and is connected by road to the rest of the island. Sugar exports, once the
mainstay of the economy, have been superceded in importance by manufacturing
(notably textiles) and services (notably tourism).
The city is dominated by an old fortress, the Citadel (1838), built on a hill
almost in the centre. A small racecourse is located on the eastern side. Port
Louis possesses Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals, a natural history museum
and an art gallery, several libraries, educational institutions, publishers, and
research institutes, government offices, and the colonial-era Government House.
In the late 1990s there was considerable development in Port Louis, including
the addition of shops, restaurants, entertainment venues, and lodging in the
city's Caudan Waterfront area. Nearby is Aapravasi Ghat, an immigration depot
used from 1849 to 1923 and the site where the modern indentured labour system
was begun by the British government in 1834; it was designated a UNESCO World
Heritage site in 2006. The University of Mauritius (1965) and the Sugar Industry
Research Institute (1953) are at Réduit, just south of Port Louis. Pop. (2000)
144,303; (2003 est.) 147,688.