Founding
city and former capital of Equatorial Guinea
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Malabo ( mə-LAH-boh, Spanish: [maˈlaβo] ⓘ; formerly Santa Isabel [ˈsantajsaˈβel] ⓘ) is a city in Equatorial Guinea, located in the province of Bioko Norte. It is located on the north coast of the island of Bioko (Bube: Etulá, historically known as Fernando Pó by the Europeans). In 2018, the city had a population of approximately 297,000 inhabitants.
Spanish is the official language of the city and of the country as well, but Pichinglis is also used as a language of wider communication across Bioko island, including Malabo.
Malabo is the oldest city in Equatorial Guinea and served as its former capital. Ciudad de la Paz became the new capital of Equatorial Guinea on 2 January 2026. The institutions of governance of Equatorial Guinea began the process of locating to Ciudad de la Paz in February 2017. The designation as capital would be returned many times, finally becoming permanent on 20 June 2026.
In 1472, in an attempt to find a new route to India, the Portuguese navigator Fernão do Pó, encountered the island of Bioko, which he called Formosa. Later, the island was named after its discoverer, Fernando Pó. At the beginning of the 16th century, specifically in 1507, the Portuguese Ramos de Esquivel made a first attempt at colonisation on the island of Fernando Pó. He established a factory in Concepción (now Riaba) and developed plantations of sugarcane.
With the Treaties of San Ildefonso in 1777 and El Pardo in 1778, during the reign of the Spanish King Charles III, the Portuguese gave to the Spanish the islands of Fernando Pó, Annobón, and the right to conduct trade in the mainland, an area of influence of approximately 800 000 km2 in Africa, in exchange for the Colonia del Sacramento in Río de la Plata and the Santa Catarina Island off the Brazilian coast (occupied by the Spaniards) during a recent war trying to stop Portuguese expansion in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. The area stretched from the Niger Delta to the mouth of Ogooué River, now in Gabon, and included, besides the islands of Fernando Pó and Annobón, the islets of Corisco and Elobeyes. Spain was uninterested in those lands because it already had vast colonies in other parts of the world, Spain lost interest in Spanish Guinea in 1827 and authorised the British to use the island as a base for suppressing the African slave trade.
In 1821, the Nelly approached the island of Fernando Pó. He found it abandoned and founded the establishments of Melville Bay (now Riaba) and San Carlos (now Luba). Some years later, another British captain, William Fitzwilliam Owen, decided to colonise the island and in the north of it — on the site of the present capital — erected a base for British ships hunting slave traders. Thus, on 25 December 1827, Port Clarence was founded on the ruins of a previous Portuguese settlement. The name was chosen in honour of the Duke of Clarence, who later became King William IV. The Bubis indigenous to the island called it Ripotó (place of the foreigners). The population of the capital was increased by the arrival of slaves freed by the British. These freedmen were settled in Port Clarence before the establishment of Sierra Leone as a colony for freed slaves. The descendants of these freed slaves remained on the island. They joined other migrants who arrived as free workers from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon, and became the population group called Creole or fernandinos, whose language was Pichinglis, a Bantu-English Creole with some Spanish elements.
During the British period, the British consul automatically became the governor of the colony, including Governor John Beecroft, a British mulatto who modernised the capital, and whose work was later recognised by Spain with a monument in Punta Fernanda.
In 1844, when Queen Isabella II of Spain ruled after the regency of her mother Maria Cristina and Baldomero Espartero, in an attempt to modernise Spain and rescue its heritage, Spain let the UK know its desire to regain control of the colony and thus the island. It took another decade to implement this direct control. The capital already had more dynamic and Protestant religious missions which were very successful. Both factors helped to change the attitude of Spain, in addition to internal reasons already alluded.
Spain again took control of the island in 1855 and the capital, Port Clarence, was renamed Santa Isabel, in honor of Queen Isabella II. The capital of the island of Fernando Pó became the capital of Equatorial Guinea.
Its present name was given to the town in 1973 as part of the campaign of President Francisco Macías Nguema to replace place names of European origin with African names, in this case honouring Malabo Löpèlo Mëlaka, the last Bubi king. Malabo, the son of King Moka, surrendered to the Spaniards. His uncle Sas Ebuera, head of the Bubi warriors, claimed to represent legitimate Bubi rule and continued resisting, confronting the Spanish openly in 1898. After the Spanish killed Sas Ebuera, Malabo became the king unopposed, but with no authority. Bubi clans and settlements were slow to accept Spanish sovereignty over the island, and the full conquest of the island was not achieved until 1912.
During the so-called Reign of Terror of Macías Nguema, the dictator suppressed much of the intelligentsia of the country, initiating the process of taking over the positions of the public administration by part of the natives of Mongomo and clan Esangui.
The infamous Black Beach prison, also known as Blay Beach prison (or Playa Negra prison), sits at the mouth of the Cónsul River, beside the black beach and behind the Governor's Palace and barracks. Several people have been jailed there during the 35 years of dictatorship. Among those imprisoned and tortured are many political leaders such as Rafael Upiñalo (Movimiento), Fabián Nsue (UP), Felipe Ondo Obiang (FDR), Martín Puye of Movement for the Self-Determination of Bioko Island (MAIB) or Plácido Micó Abogo of the Social Democratic Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS). A group of mercenaries were jailed at Black Beach for the 2004 coup d'état attempt against President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
Malabo is situated in the north of the island of Bioko, at coordinates 3° 45' 7.43" North and 8° 46' 25.32" East. The south of Malabo is limited by the Cónsul River and just across the river, south-west, is the hospital. West of the city, located about 9 km from the centre of Malabo, is the renewed Malabo International Airport. In the coastal region north of the city are the bays and capes. The elder is the Punta de la Unidad Africana located just behind the Malabo Government Building and which occupies the entire eastern part of the Bay of Malabo. Another cape of importance is Punta Europa located in the west of the city near to the airport.
Malabo features a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am). Malabo receives on average 1,850 millimetres or 73 inches of rain per year. The city has a pronounced, albeit short, sunnier (but still cloudy) dry season during December and January. January is normally its driest month with 29 millimetres or 1.14 inches of rain falling on average. It also has a very long cloudy wet season that covers the remaining nine months from March to November. On average, the months hit hardest by the wet season are September and October, which receive 500 millimetres (20 in) of rain and showers between them.
Daytime temperatures do not vary at all day to day, and vary only a few degrees throughout the entire year. At night, the average low temperature is 20 to 21 °C (68 to 70 °F) in every month of the year but January to April have a slightly higher diurnal range because it is clearer. Nonetheless, with only 1,020 hours of sunshine per year, Malabo is one of the cloudiest, wettest and most lightning-prone capitals of the world, and experiences much fog and haze even when it is not raining in the driest months.
The mayor is María Coloma Edjang Mbengono, who establishes the municipal services prescribed by law, which are the responsibility of the municipality. These include drinking water and other public sources, lighting, paving of roads, cemeteries, cleaning and sanitation, the sanitary waste treatment and waste, disinfecting, emergency first aid, health inspections and drinks, health inspection of poor housing, public banks, slaughterhouses, markets, and the elimination of stagnant water.
Through the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID), are made several development projects at both regional and national level. Headquartered in the Technical Cooperation Office in Malabo (created in 1984), carried out actions for the development of the culture, health, education and institutional strengthening. Stressing the Cultural Center of Spain in Malabo (CCEM), founded in 2003, where young people are encouraged to feel a cultural space where they can unleash their creative freedom. It also has three geographical axes, in order to capture the largest number of people in the region and contribute to its development. Activities include the training, art, film, theater, music and games, with the two main festivals: Travelling Film Festival of Equatorial Guinea (FECIGE) and the International Festival of Hip Hop in Malabo.
Another important centre is the Hispano-Guinean Cultural Center, from 2012 Equatorial Guinean Cultural Center began as headquarters of Institute Cardinal Cisneros, and then archive, museum and library. It was built in the 1950s.
The Museum of Modern Art Equatorial Guinea has traditional and contemporary art of the country and the continent. The city also hosts the National Library, built in 1916.
The tourism sector is seeing significant expansion. Since the discovery of oil, numerous infrastructural developments have been made. The city of Malabo is a focal point for tourism in Equatorial Guinea, due to its direct connections with major tourist attractions on the island of Bioko. Nearby tourist attractions include the following:
Malabo has a relatively young population. Approximately 45% of the population is under 15. Only about 4% of the population is more than 65 years old. Most of the population lives in rural areas of the island.
Malabo is the country's commercial and financial centre. Malabo's economy is based on the administration and other services. Trade is also one of the most prominent and important economic activities, especially since the arrival of US companies which exploit oil wells close to the coast. This trade also comes from the presence of Americans, Mexicans, Nigerians, Cameroonians, Spanish and other Central Africans; The building that was originally built by the Banco Popular Español, but after independence became the seat of Banco de Guinea Ecuatorial.
The main industry in the city is fishing, while cacao and coffee are the main products of export.
Malabo has a high-tonnage port, connected mainly with the ports of Douala, (Cameroon) and Bata, and an air link via an international airport.
The National University of Equatorial Guinea (UNGE) and the National Distance Education University (UNED), the latter Spanish-language, have headquarters in the city. The Colegio Nacional Enrique Nvó Okenve, another of the country's universities, has one of its two campuses in the city.
International schools:
Malabo has preserved buildings from the colonial era, such as the Presidential Palace and the Palace of Justice of Malabo. Other colonial buildings are also found downtown, although they are worn; for example the wooden 19th-century buildings on Nigeria and Rey Boncoro streets.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Malabo”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.