page_title: Equatorial Guinea
section_title: First European contact and Portuguese rule (1472–1778)
hierarchical_section_title: Equatorial Guinea / History / First European contact and Portuguese rule (1472–1778)
caption_attribution_description: Detail showing the Bight of Biafra from a map by Herman Moll, 1729, showing "NEGROLAND and GUINEA. With the European Settlements, Explaining what belongs to England, Holland, Denmark etc.
context_page_description: Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, is a country located on the west coast of Central Africa, with an area of 28,000 square kilometres. Formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea, its post-independence name evokes its location near both the Equator and the Gulf of Guinea. Equatorial Guinea is the only sovereign African state in which Spanish is an official language. As of 2015, the country had a population of 1,225,367.
  Equatorial Guinea consists of two parts, an insular and a mainland region. The insular region consists of the islands of Bioko in the Gulf of Guinea and Annobón, a small volcanic island which is the only part of the country south of the equator. Bioko Island is the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea and is the site of the country's capital, Malabo. The Portuguese-speaking island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe is located between Bioko and Annobón. The mainland region, Río Muni, is bordered by Cameroon on the north and Gabon on the south and east. It is the location of Bata, Equatorial Guinea's largest city, and Ciudad de la Paz, the country's planned future capital.
context_section_description: The Portuguese explorer Fernando Pó, seeking a path to India, is credited as being the first European to discover the island of Bioko, in 1472. He called it Formosa ("Beautiful"), but it quickly took on the name of its European discoverer. Fernando Pó and Annobón were colonized by Portugal in 1474. The first factories were established on the islands around 1500 as the Portuguese quickly recognized the positives of the islands including volcanic soil and disease-resistant highlands. Despite natural advantages, initial Portuguese efforts in 1507 to establish a sugarcane plantation and town near what is now Concepción on Fernando Pó failed due to Bubi hostility and fever. The main island's rainy climate, extreme humidity and temperature swings took a major toll on European settlers from the beginning, and it would be centuries before attempts restarted.
caption: Portuguese rule in Equatorial Guinea lasted from the arrival of Fernão do Pó (Fernando Pó) in 1472 until the 1778 Treaty of El Pardo.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "150", "Image YResolution": "150", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2006:06:28 14:13:39", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7591", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "466", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "355"}