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Réunion
A volcanic French department and EU outermost region in the Indian Ocean
Few places pack so much relief into so little ground. Réunion, a French overseas department in the western Indian Ocean about 700 kilometers east of Madagascar, climbs from the sea to more than 3,000 meters on an island of just 2,512 square kilometers. Its southeastern quarter belongs to the Piton de la Fournaise, a shield volcano that ranks among the most active on Earth and erupts most years, sometimes sending lava all the way to the coast. In law and administration the island is as fully French as Bordeaux, it uses the euro, and as an outermost region of the European Union it is a corner of Europe at 21 degrees south, closer to Mauritius than to any continent.
The island is two volcanoes fused together. The dormant Piton des Neiges, at 3,070 meters the highest point in the Indian Ocean, has eroded into three immense amphitheaters, the cirques of Cilaos, Salazie, and Mafate, the last reachable only on foot or by helicopter. The pitons, cirques, and ramparts were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010. To the southeast, the Piton de la Fournaise remains active and erupted again in the first half of 2026. INSEE estimated the population at about 911,000 at the start of 2026, most of it living along the coast in Saint-Denis, Saint-Pierre, Saint-Paul, and Le Tampon. France governs through a prefect alongside elected departmental and regional councils, and French and Réunion Creole are spoken everywhere.
The island was uninhabited when European sailors reached it, and France claimed it in the 1640s, naming it Île Bourbon before the revolutionary government renamed it Réunion in 1793. Settlers brought enslaved people from Madagascar, East Africa, and India to work coffee and later sugar plantations, and after abolition in 1848 indentured laborers arrived from India and China. That history produced one of the most mixed societies in the French-speaking world, with Hindu temples, mosques, Chinese pagodas, and Catholic churches in the same towns. Réunion became an overseas department in 1946, and its status is not internationally disputed. Present-day debates center on a cost of living above the mainland, unemployment well over the French average, and dependence on public transfers from Paris.