LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Mayotte
built 615 days ago
The population of Mayotte was 208,807 in 2007. Most of the people of Mayotte, called Mahorais, live in villages or small towns, including Mamoudzou (1991 population, 20,450), Dzaoudzi (8,257), Pamanzi Be, and Chingoni. Since 1975, when Mayotte chose to remain a French territory, there has been extensive immigration from the other islands of the Comoros, and the Comorian element in the population is now in a clear majority. The population is 98 percent Muslim. During the 19th century a large number of migrants from Madagascar settled on the island. Many of these were non-Muslims and some embraced Roman Catholicism after the French occupation.
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Mayotte was part of the French protectorate of the Comoro Islands at the start of the 20th century. On 1912-07-25, the Comoros became a French colony. When they gained full independence on 1975-07-06, the inhabitants of Mayotte voted to remain tied to France. Mayotte has a department code of 976, which is an extension of the French system.
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Mayotte has had rapid development of maternal and infant care and health services, with several rural clinics and two hospitals. Intervention by traditional practitioners and rituals of possession by spirits remain the preferred way of dealing with personal or relationship problems that may result in illness. Rapid changes in society have affected school-age adolescent girls in particular.
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Mayotte offers real camping-villages. All the attractions of life in the open air, natural conviviality, a free and easy life are available here with all the comfort of a holiday village which ... includes services, entertainment, and activities. Mayotte is very well situated, in a perfect tourist stop where a bath can take many forms. You can choose to bathe in the vast and calm lake of Biscarosse, or in one of the beautiful resort swimming pools. Or take a tonic bath in the waves of Atlantic Ocean. In Mayotte you can breathe the air of the pine forest of the Landes, a forest where the smell of pines stimulates you to walk or cycle far from the noise of the busy roads.
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In the 19th century Mayotte attracted Creole sugar planters from Réunion (another French-controlled island in the Indian Ocean). Since then the export of sugar has been replaced by a small export of ylang-ylang (the essence extracted from ylang-ylang flowers and used to make perfume), vanilla, and coffee, much of it grown and processed by landowners with small holdings. The economy of most of the people depends on subsistence farming, fishing, and on employment provided by the French administration and armed forces. France heavily subsidizes the economy, and the currency is the French franc. Imports are regularly ten times the value of exports. There are a number of hotels, but little tourism has developed.
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Mayotte was ceded to France along with the other Comoros in 1843. It was the only island in the archipelago that voted in referendums in 1974 and 1976 to retain its link with France and forgo independence (with 63.8% and 99.4% of votes respectively). The Comoros continue to claim the island, and a draft 1976 United Nations Security Council resolution supported by 11 of the 15 members of the Council would have recognized Comoros sovereignty over Mayotte, but France vetoed the resolution (the last time, as of 2004, France cast a lone veto in the Council). The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a series of resolutions on the issues, whose tenor can be gauged from their title: "Question of the Comorian Island of Mayotte" up to 1995. Since 1995, the subject of Mayotte has not been discussed by the General Assembly.
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Mayotte