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Sao Tome and Principe

Updated: Sep 17, 2022

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Country Name

Sao Tome and Principe, (Saint Thomas and Prince) or officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe.

Location

Sao Tome & Principe is an island country in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa.

It consists of two archipelagos around the two main islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, The island nation shares maritime borders with Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Nigeria.


Capital

São Tomé.

The reason for naming the country

Its name is Portuguese for "Saint Thomas". Founded in the 15th century, is one of Africa's oldest colonial cities.

Príncipe was initially named Santo Antão ("Saint Anthony"), changing its name in 1502 to Ilha do Príncipe ("Prince's Island"), about the Prince of Portugal to whom duties on the island's sugar crop were paid.



Flag

The flag was adopted on 5 November 1975, after independence from Portugal, on the left side of the flag, a red triangle intersects three horizontal stripes of green, yellow, and green, and two black five-pointed stars adorn the yellow ribbon.

These colors are commonly referred to as Pan-African.

The yellow color signifies the sun and cocoa (a major crop), while the green color reflects Sao Tome and Principe's farmland and greenery.