PORT LOUIS

city, capital and main port of the island of Mauritius in the western Indian Ocean. It lies between a well-sheltered, deepwater harbour, accessible to ships through a break in the coral reef, and a semicircle of mountains. Port Louis was founded around 1736 by the French as a calling place for ships rounding the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) to and from Asia and Europe. British occupation of the island during the Napoleonic Wars (1800-15) was a strategic factor in securing control of the Indian Ocean, but the building of the Suez Canal in 1869 resulted in the port being bypassed by shipping. Port activity increased during the closure of the Suez Canal, 1967-75, and the harbour was modernized in the late 1970s. The town is the central collecting and clearing point for all imports and exports from Mauritius and its dependencies and is connected by road to the rest of the island. Sugar accounts for over 90 percent of domestic export value. The town is dominated by an old fortress, the Citadel (1838), built on a hill almost in the centre. A small racecourse is located on the eastern side. Port Louis possesses Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals, a natural history museum and an art gallery, and several libraries, educational institutions, publishers, and research institutes. The University of Mauritius (1965) and the Sugar Industry Research Institute (1953) are at Rduit, just south of Port Louis. Pop. (1983 prelim.) 132,200.