A bit of history

Until the mid-80s, the archipelago was one of the poorest countries in the world. Long periods of drought, hunger and hardships forced many of the people to seek their fortune abroad. So more than 700,000 Cape Verde left their country for Portugal, Holland, France, Italy and the United States. Cabo Verde became an independent stateafter being a Portuguese colony since 1975. With the independence the economy went very down and the country ended a few years under the political influence of countries covered by the Warsaw Pact. Fortunately, this period didn't last longer and Cabo Verde returned to join the Western world.

After this, the survival of Cabo Verde has been guaranteed for many years thanks to the  help of of the World Bank and of heavy subsidies from the European Community that still support the archipelago with large projects and funding.

At the beginning of the 90s, the country has been gradually transformed into a popular tourist destination. The foreign investors have discovered the "new Canary Islands", as it is called Cape Verde, creating hotels on the island of Sal and Boavista, and giving life to an unprecedented economic development.

Thanks to tourism and the considerable improvement of Transport, the country is now experiencing a small economic boom.  This development is concentrated only in a small number of islands of the archipelago, but are already under construction a lot of new infrastructure in Santiago, São Vicente and Santo Antao which, off course, are creating new jobs and new economic activities.

Since its independence in 1975, the government of the country is based on the principles of a democratic republic with parliamentary majority voting system. Despite the great poverty and rampant unemployment, the country has never known social or political tensions. The elections, held on a regular schedule, take place according to the rules of a democratic vote and without incident.

Most of the population is Catholic or Protestant. 

20% of the GDP comes from remission from families living abroad. The general economic situation, although improved in recent years, however, remains precarious. The situation is particularly critical for young people who can not find work.

Even the path of migration is no longer very easy to be taken due to the restrictive laws on 'immigration' adopted by European Community and the United States. That is why young people are getting more confident in this positive trend of recent years of new investment from abroad and that in some islands have created thousands of new jobs.

The expansion of tourism, which began in the mid-nineties especially on the island of Sal and Boavista, is of particular interest for the country. On the two islands, the unemployment rate has now fallen to levels never known before and is already talk of the need to "import" labor even from abroad.

In the island of Sal, probably,  portuguese language, soon, will not be longer the most spoken language, infact already is very easy to meet local people that can alk several language as french, english and even italian.