Mauritius is formally the Republic of Mauritius, an island country in the Indian Sea regarding 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) off the southeast shore of the African continent, eastern of Madagascar. It consists of the main island (also called Mauritius), along with Rodrigues, Agaléga as well as St. Brandon. The islands of Mauritius as well as Rodrigues, in addition to neighboring Réunion (a French overseas department), become part of the Mascarene Islands.

The capital and largest city, Port Louis, is located in Mauritius, where a lot of the population is concentrated. The country spans 2,040 square kilometres (790 sq mi) as well as has an unique financial zone covering 2.3 million square kilometres.

Arab seafarers were the first to uncover the unoccupied island, around 975, as well as they called it Dina Arobi. The earliest verified exploration remained in 1507 by Portuguese seafarers, that otherwise took little interest in the islands. The Dutch occupied in 1598, developing a sequence of short-lived settlements over a period of about 120 years, prior to abandoning their efforts in 1710. France took control in 1715, renaming it Island de France.

In 1810, the UK took the island, and 4 years later, in the Treaty of Paris (1814 ), France yielded Mauritius and its reliances to the United Kingdom. The British nest of Mauritius included Rodrigues, Agaléga, St. Brandon, Tromelin, the Chagos Archipelago, and also, till 1906, the Seychelles. Mauritius and also France conflict sovereignty over Tromelin as the Treaty of Paris stopped working to discuss it particularly. Mauritius continued to be a primarily plantation-based colony of the United Kingdom up until independence in 1968.

In 1965, 3 years before Mauritius came to be independent, the UK divided off the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritian region, as well as likewise divided off the islands of Aldabra, Farquhar, and Desroches from the Seychelles, to develop the British Indian Sea Region (BIOT). The regional population was forcibly eliminated and also the largest island, Diego Garcia, was leased to the United States. The UK has limited access to the Chagos Island chain, disallowing entry to casual travelers, the media, and previous inhabitants.

The sovereignty of the Chagos is challenged in between Mauritius as well as the UK. In February 2019, the International Court of Justice released an advisory viewpoint buying the UK to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius as quickly as feasible to complete the decolonisation of Mauritius.