Mayotte (also called Maore or Mahoré) is the easternmost of the Comoro Islands, a group of islands in the Mozambique Channel midway between northern Madagascar and the African continent. France gained control over the island in 1843 and incorporated it into its Comoros colony. Independence for Comoros was planned for 1978 but in 1975 the Comorian parliament declared independence unilaterally. Deputies from Mayotte abstained, however, and in 1976 the people of Mayotte voted to continue their link to France. France then vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have confirmed Comorian sovereignty over Mayotte. On 31 March 2011 Mayotte became an overseas département of the French Republic. This gives Mayotte nearly the same status as the mainland departments, so it is part of the European Union and the eurozone. In December 2024 the island was devastated by the severe Tropical Cyclone Chido. Dzaoudzi, on the northeast coast, is the capital of the territory. Aids to navigation are probably the responsibility of the department's commercial port of Longoni, operated as the Mozambique Channel Gateway. French is the official language in Mayotte and is widely spoken as a first or second language. The French word for a lighthouse, phare, is often reserved for the larger coastal lighthouses; a smaller light or harbor light is called a feu (literally "fire," but here meaning "light") or a balise (beacon). The front light of a range (alignement) is the feu antérieur and the rear light is the feu postérieur. In French île is an island, cap is a cape, pointe is a promontory or point of land, roche is a rock, récife is a reef, baie is a bay, estuaire is an estuary or inlet, détroit is a strait, rivière is a river, and havre is a harbor. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume D of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112.
|
|
Information available on lost lighthouses: Notable faux lighthouses: |
Adjoining pages: East: Northern Madagascar | West: Comoros
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted October 30, 2005. Checked and revised February 13, 2025. Lighthouses: 11. Site copyright 2025 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.