ABSTRACT
One of Africa’s most stable and democratic countries, the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe is located in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. The people of this island country are predominantly Christian with a Catholic majority. The population is young, with 61 percent of São Tomé and Príncipe’s 213,948 people under the age of 25. About 98 percent of residents of Sao Tome and Principe speak Portuguese, the official and de facto national language. With a population comprising descendants of immigrant Europeans and African slaves, São Tomé and Príncipe has Mesticos, Angolares, Forros, Servicias, Tongas, Europeans, and Asians as its major ethnic groups.
