Annobón in the context of "Mabana"

The Insular Region of Equatorial Guinea (Spanish: Región Insular de Guinea Ecuatorial, French: Région insulaire de Guinée équatoriale, Portuguese: Região Insular da Guiné Equatorial) comprises the former Spanish territory of Fernando Po, together with Annobón island, the latter formerly part of the Spanish territory of Elobey, Annobón, and Corisco, which was located in the Gulf of Guinea and in the Corisco Bay.

The region covers 2,052 km and has a population of 340,362 in 2015. It is split into three political jurisdictions:

Elobey, Annobón, and Corisco was a colonial administration of Spanish Africa consisting of the island of Annobón, located southwest of São Tomé and Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea, and the small islands of Elobey Grande, Elobey Chico, and Corisco, located in the Corisco Bay [es] near the mouth of the Mitémélé River in the Muni Estuary.

It was established as a protectorate in 1843. Its total area was under 36 km, and the estimated population in 1910 was 2,950 people. It depended on the governor-general based in Santa Isabel, who had lieutenant governors in Annobón and Elobey Chico.

Annobonese Creole is a Portuguese creole known to its speakers as Fa d'Ambu or Fá d'Ambô (Portuguese: Fala de Ano-Bom, "Annobón speech"). It is spoken on the Annobón and Bioko Islands off the coast of Equatorial Guinea, mostly by people of mixed African, Portuguese and Spanish descent. It is called annobonense or annobonés in Spanish.

The attitude in Equatorial Guinea towards this language is positive. It is taught in special courses in the capital city of Malabo.

San Antonio de Palé, formerly known as St Antony, São Antonio de Praia and Palea, is the capital of Annobón (an island in Equatorial Guinea that was once part of the Spanish Empire in Africa).

The town has 600 inhabitants, the majority of whom speak the Annobonese Creole. It is located in the extreme north of the island, which is the driest and flattest area. It is home to Annobón Airport, a dock, a hospital, a school, a lighthouse, a radio station, and a Catholic mission.

João de Santarém (15th century) was a Portuguese explorer who discovered São Tomé (in December 21, 1471), Annobón (in January 1472) and Príncipe (January 17, 1472), and hence became the first known European to reach the Southern Hemisphere. Together with Pero Escobar, he also encountered the town of Sassandra in the Ivory Coast in 1471 and 1472, explored the African land from Ghana up to the Niger Delta. From 1484 he was captain of Alcatrazes (around Santiago or Brava) in Cape Verde.

In January 1471, João de Santarém and Pero de Escobar discovered "the traffic of gold at the place we now call Mina" (present-day Elmina).

Pero Escobar, also known as Pedro Escobar, was a 15th-century Portuguese navigator who discovered São Tomé (December 21, 1471), Annobón (January 1, 1472), Príncipe (January 17, 1472) islands, together with João de Santarém c. 1470. He is then recorded sailing with Diogo Cão on his first voyage in 1482, and as the pilot of the famous Bérrio caravel on Vasco da Gama's first expedition in 1497 to sail directly from Europe to India. He was also on Pedro Álvares Cabral's discovery of Brazil in 1500.

In 1471, working in the service of Lisbon merchant Fernão Gomes, who had a concession for the exploration and trade in the Gulf of Guinea, Pedro Escobar helped to discover the gold industry that would grow around Elmina in 1471.

Portuguese is spoken in a number of African countries and is the official language in five African countries: Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola and Mozambique. It also has official status in Equatorial Guinea, where it is a minority language spoken in the province of Annobón. There are Portuguese-speaking communities in most countries of Southern Africa, a mixture of Portuguese settlers and Angolans and Mozambicans who left their countries during the civil wars. A conservative estimate is that there are about 19 million people who use Portuguese as their sole mother tongue across Africa and approximately 35.5 million total speakers, but depending on the criteria applied, the number might be considerably higher. Drawing upon census data provided by the PALOP (Portuguese-speaking African nations), especially the 2014 Angolan census and the 2017 Mozambican census, one may arrive at a rough projection of 33.5 million native speakers (27.5 million Angolans - 71% of the population; 5.88 million Mozambicans - 16.5% of the population; 143.000 Santomenses; 5.850 Guineans and 11.800 Cape Verdeans) and total (L1+L2) 49 million speakers (27.5 million Angolans, 20.48 million Mozambicans and 1.3 million in other CPLP and neighbouring African countries). Indeed many Africans speak Portuguese as a second language, in countries like Angola and Mozambique, where Portuguese is an official language, but also in countries like South Africa and Senegal, thanks to migrants coming from Portuguese-speaking countries.

Africa is, therefore, the continent with the second-most Portuguese speakers in the world, only behind the Americas. Like French and English, Portuguese has become a post-colonial language in Africa and one of the working languages of the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Portuguese co-exists in Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Principe with Portuguese-based creoles (Upper Guinea and Gulf of Guinea Creoles), but Portuguese continues to be the official language of these countries.