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Reunion (formerly Ile Bourbon) is a volcanic island in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar and southwest of Mauritius. It has an area of ??2,512 square kilometers, and a population of 859,959 inhabitants, according to official estimates for 2020.
It has been an overseas region of France since 1946 and has its capital at Saint-Denis. It is also the most remote region of the European Union and has the euro as its currency.
Arab sailors who first approached the island named it Adna Al Magribain ("Western Island").
The first Europeans to arrive on the island and find it uninhabited were the Portuguese, in 1635, and gave it the name Santa Apollonia, after St. Apollonia.
The island was subsequently conquered by the French and was under the administration of Port Louis in Mauritius. Although the French flag was first hoisted on the island in 1638, the (then called) Santa Apollonia was officially annexed to France in 1642, when French convicts landed on the island from Madagascar.
After their return to mainland France several years later, the island was renamed Il Bourbon in 1649, after the royal house of Bourbon.
The name Reunion was given to the island in 1793 by a decision of the governing council after the fall of the House of Bourbons in France, to honor the reunion (reunion in French) of the revolutionaries from Marseille with the National Guard in Paris, which took place on 10 August 1792.
In 1801, the island was named Bonaparte Island, in honor of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1810, the island was invaded by a squadron of the British Royal Navy, commanded by Josiah Rolley, who used the old name Il Bourbon again. When the island returned to France after the Vienna Conference in 1815, the island bore the name Bourbon until the fall of the re-establishment of the House of Bourbons.
and then during the French Revolution of 1848, it returned to the name Reunion.
Its historical development and settlement began in the 17th century with the migration of Africans, Chinese, Malaysians and Indians, under French supervision, forming a special local population mix.
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 reduced the island's importance as a stopover for the East India Sea route.
During World War II, Reunion was under the rule of the Vichy regime until November 30, 1942, when the island was liberated by cruiser Leopard.