Speakers Coast

Speakers Bank is a broad coral formation at the northern edge of the Chagos Archipelago. Most of its reef rim lies beneath the water, though parts emerge at low tide. Portuguese sailors knew the Chagos in the sixteenth century, and a castaway from the Conceição, wrecked at Peros Banhos in 1556, left an early account of the islands. French plantation settlements followed in the late eighteenth century; in 1814 the archipelago passed with Mauritius to Britain.