If you couldn’t find Cabo Verde (also known as Cape Verde) on a map before reading this post, you’d be far from alone. One of the smallest countries in Africa, at just 4,033 square kilometres (1,557 square miles), it’s roughly the size of Rhode Island, the smallest U.S. state. And Cabo Verde’s landmass is spread across 10 small volcanic islands in the Atlantic Ocean, making it not exactly the easiest place to pick out on a globe. But I hope these fun facts about Cape Verde bring the country to life for you!
Once I started learning about Cabo Verde, I was intrigued. For instance, the country technically gained its independence twice in five years. It comes close to having a time zone completely to itself. By some estimates, there are almost as many people of Cabo Verdean ancestry in the United States as there are in Cabo Verde. And Cabo Verde’s national drink is called “grogue,” which just makes me want to yell, “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!”
Read on to learn fun facts about Cape Verde, the best time to visit Cape Verde, highlights of Cape Verde culture and more.
But first, a note for the keen-eyed
You’ll notice that throughout this post, I use both the country’s official name, Cabo Verde, and its previous name, Cape Verde. The country changed its official name in 2013. Normally, I would be very careful to use the current, official name exclusively. And, as an editor, using both names randomly in this post is driving me utterly crazy.
If the inconsistency makes you nuts, too, here’s why I made this choice: Lots of people still search the Internet using the old name, Cape Verde, and I want them to be able to find this post if they do. So, yes, I’ve prioritized search engine optimization over editorial consistency and correctness here. My apologies to my fellow editorial purists.
Where is Cabo Verde?
Because of its popularity with European sun seekers, many people wonder, “Is Cape Verde in Europe?” The short answer: no.
Cabo Verde is a group of 10 islands off the west coast of Africa. How far off? Your guess is as good as mine, as no two sources seem to agree. Encyclopaedia Britannica says 620 kilometres (385 miles), while National Geographic says about 570 kilometres (350 miles). It all depends on which island you use as your end point, I suppose. Most measurements start from Cape Verde in Senegal, which is Africa’s westernmost point, the nearest bit of the mainland to Cabo Verde and the source of Cabo Verde’s name.
Cabo Verde time zone: A rather lonely place
Cabo Verde uses what is still known officially as Cape Verde Time (CVT). It is one hour behind Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which means that it is often one hour behind London and four hours ahead of New York…but not always. You see, Cabo Verde doesn’t use Daylight Saving Time, so Cabo Verdeans don’t change their clocks in spring and fall. (Smart people. Don’t get me started on how much I loathe Daylight Saving Time.)
Because Cabo Verde is one of the few inhabited places in the Atlantic, it doesn’t share this time zone with many other locations. In fact, the main spots in the same time zone as Cabo Verde are Portugal’s Azores Islands (where the time zone is known as Azores Time) and Ittoqqortoormiit, a tiny community in eastern Greenland (where it’s called East Greenland Time).
Cape Verde’s history: Colonization and independence
As far as historians and archaeologists have been able to determine, these little islands had no permanent inhabitants until Portuguese explorers showed up around 1460. They established the first European settlement in the tropics, Ribeira Grande, on Santiago Island in 1462. Now known as Cidade Velha (which translates to “Old City”), it is Cabo Verde’s only UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Tragically, the Portuguese used Cabo Verde as a staging point for the slave trade. Enslaved Africans were often transported via Cabo Verde to Brazil and other Portuguese colonies.
Until 1879, Portugal administered Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau in West Africa together; after that date, they were split into two separately administered territories.
From the 1950s through the 1970s, rebellions against Portuguese rule occurred in Cabo Verde. The country gained its independence on July 5, 1975. It remained closely linked, politically and militarily, to newly independent Guinea-Bissau until 1980, when a coup in Guinea-Bissau caused the Cabo Verdeans to sever that connection.
Cesária Évora: The Queen of Morna
It’s not much of a stretch to say that Cesária Évora was the most famous Cabo Verdean singer of her time. Nicknamed the Queen of Morna—a type of Cape Verdean music known for its gentle rhythms and sad, nostalgic themes—she got her start singing in restaurants, on the radio and aboard cruise ships. (She was also known as the Barefoot Diva, for her habit of appearing shoeless on stage.)
Born in 1941, Évora was well into her forties and living in Paris when she was “discovered” by European record producers and recorded her first albums. Her breakthrough 1992 album, Miss Perfumado, featured the hit song “Sodade,” which you can hear in the video above. “Sodade” is a Cape Verde Creole word that translates roughly as nostalgia or longing. Évora also popularized a faster type of morna known as coladeira. She died in Cape Verde in 2011 at the age of 70.
You can learn more about morna in this detailed post and podcast from Al Jazeera.
What does the Cape Verde flag look like?
Cabo Verde adopted the flag above in 1992, to replace a flag it had used when it was more closely aligned with Guinea-Bissau. The blue bars represent the sea and sky, the white and red bars the road toward building a nation, and the 10 stars the 10 islands of Cabo Verde.
What languages do people speak in Cape Verde?
Portuguese is the official language, but Cape Verdean Creole—a blend of words from African and European languages—is widely spoken.
Cabo Verde people and the Cabo Verdean diaspora
As of early 2023, Cabo Verde’s population was about 596,000, according to World Population Review.
Around the world, you’ll find sizeable communities of Cabo Verdeans and their descendants in numerous countries. Drought, economic troubles and other turmoil have often spurred the country’s people to seek better opportunities abroad.
Intriguingly, the biggest ex-pat Cabo Verdean community is in the United States, particularly in New England. In fact, it is so large that in the past, Cabo Verde Airlines and other carriers offered direct flights connecting Cape Verde to Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. According to the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism, there are 40,000 people of Cape Verdean heritage in greater Boston alone.
Cabo Verde currency
The escudo de Cabo Verde is the country’s official currency. It is divided into 100 centavos. One euro will convert to about 110 escudos. Both bills and coins are in circulation.
So is it Cabo Verde or Cape Verde?
As I noted at the top of this post, officially, it’s Cabo Verde. The United Nations accepted the country’s request for an official name change in 2013. “Cabo Verde” was the name the Portuguese gave the islands when they first colonized the archipelago.
Over the centuries, the partial anglicization “Cape Verde” took hold. (If people had wanted to go fully anglophone, they’d have called it “Green Cape” or “Cape Green.”) In French, the country was known as “Cap Vert.” Basically, the name changed from language to language.
Many other countries have decided to live with such anomalies. The United States is “les États Unis” to a French speaker and “los Estados Unidos” to a Spanish speaker, for instance. However, Cabo Verde decided that enough was enough and that it wanted to be known by one consistent name the world over, as this Boston Globe article explains. The UN agreed…but the world has been a bit slow to catch on.
Cape Verde travel tips
Cabo Verde is a popular holiday destination, particularly for Europeans. Visitors come to hike through valleys on the island of Santa Antão, to go windsurfing off Sal and Boa Vista islands, to celebrate Mardi Gras in the city of Mindelo, or simply to bask on sandy beaches and relax in waterfront resorts. There are several international airports; the biggest is Amílcar Cabral International Airport on Sal.
What’s the best time to visit Cape Verde?
If you like sunshine, the period from December to May is the best time to go to Cape Verde. According to climate data from the World Bank, the temperature during that period usually varies between a low of 18C (64F) and a high of 26C (79F), and rainfall averages less than 5mm (0.2 inches) a month. August, September and October are hot and rainy, with average temperatures in September hovering around 28C (82F) and rainfall topping 60mm (2.4 inches).
Breaking the data down by island, Sal is the warmest island and Fogo is the coolest, while Santa Luzia is the driest island and Brava is the rainiest. Rain isn’t necessarily all bad, by the way; rainfall makes Brava green and good for agriculture, while the drier islands have more desert-like landscapes.
Cabo Verde food
Cachupa is Cabo Verde’s national dish. This stew has two variations: Cachupa pobre (poor cachupa) is made with vegetables and fish, while cachupa rica (rich cachupa) features the same ingredients plus meat, such as pork cutlets and sausage. (Meat is understandably expensive on these small, isolated islands.)
The video above demonstrates how to make cachupa from start to finish. The captions are in Portuguese, as the video was posted by a Cabo Verdean cooking website, Criola Cozinha. However, the tourism board for one of the country’s islands, Boa Vista, has conveniently posted a cachupa recipe in English.
Other Cabo Verde recipes you can see on Criola Cozinha include recipes for donuts (donete), simple sweets made of sugar and shredded coconut called doce de coco, and fried moray (moreia frita). (Tip: If you don’t read Portuguese, you can get the basic idea of the recipes by running them through an online translator such as Reverso.)
And if you’re visiting Cabo Verde, you could also sample the national drink, grogue, a strong alcoholic spirit made locally from sugarcane.
Cape Verde culture
As I mentioned above, Cesária Évora is likely Cabo Verde’s best-known cultural figure. However, if you’d like to delve more into the islands’ culture, this Encyclopaedia Britannica article provides a basic introduction to some Cape Verde’s literature.
Before independence, poetry and novels often focused on the tense relationship between Cabo Verde and Portugal. And both before and after independence, Cabo Verdean writers have used the islands’ poverty and history of emigration in their works. Like morna, nostalgia is a common element.
In 1936, poet Jorge Barbosa—pictured above on Cabo Verde’s 500-escudo bank note—was one of the co-founders of the literary journal Claridade (“Clarity”). That periodical is credited with kicking off Cabo Verde’s literary history.
If movies are more your style, IMDB lists over a dozen feature films that have been shot in Cabo Verde or feature Cape Verdean themes. Among the ones you can watch for free on Tubi are Djon Africa, a 2018 movie about a Portuguese Rastafarian in search of his Cabo Verde roots.
Cape Verde accommodations
You can search for Cape Verde hotels and resorts using the map below. It’s an affiliate link, meaning that if you book a place to stay using the map, I’ll receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you)…and you’ll receive my thanks for supporting this site. 😊
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