Réunion

Réunion is an island in the Indian Ocean that forms an overseas department and region of France. It belongs to the Mascarene Islands and lies roughly 679 kilometres east of Madagascar and 175 kilometres southwest of Mauritius. Before French settlers arrived in the 17th century the island was uninhabited; its tropical climate then supported a plantation economy built mainly on sugar, worked first by enslaved people from East Africa and later by indentured laborers from Southeast Asia, China and India. Known as Île Bourbon until 1848, it has been governed as a French region since 1946, which makes it an outermost region of the European Union and part of the eurozone. French is the only official language, though Réunion Creole is the one most people speak. The capital and largest city is Saint-Denis.