The Comoros islands formed, with Zanzibar, Pemba, Lamu, and the coastal towns of Kenya and Tanzania, a united and prosperous region of Swahili culture, trading in local goods which were exported to the African coast, Madagascar, the Middle East and India.

During the colonial period, French settlers established plantations, initially producing sugar, an intensive process dependent on the labor of numerous Africans.

In 1997, demands for increased autonomy on the islands of Ndzuani (Anjouan) and Mwali (Moheli) led to the breakup of the Federal Islamic Republic.

In 2001, the government reformed as the Union of the Comoros under a new constitution which gave each of the three islands more autonomy than had been enjoyed previously.

The island country continues its present form of confederal government, albeit with minor changes approved in referendums in 2009 and 2018.

The island of Mayotte is the oldest one still above sea level and underwent three volcanic phases between 15 million and 500,000 years ago.

The climate is also characterized by important local variations in temperature and precipitation according to altitude, relief and the degree of exposure to the elements.

The hot, dry season is caused by a vast low pressure area which extends over a large part of the Indian Ocean and Central Africa.

The low pressure moves towards the continent of Asia (this is the monsoon, the wind blowing from the south-east) and an anticyclone forms below the Comoros.

More precisely, in order to minimize the felling of trees for fuel, kerosene has been subsidized, and efforts are underway to replace the lost forest cover caused by the distillation of Ylang-ylang for perfume.

Like most islands, the diversity of the local flora suffers from two pressures, on the one hand the reduction of available space caused by humans settling in what used to be the wildest areas, and the invasion of exotic plant species such as guava trees.

A British preservation group sent an expedition to the Comoros in 1992, with the object of transporting some specimens to Great Britain, in order to form a reproducing colony.

The common brown lemur or maki, known as Kima in Shikomori, is present on Mayotte, where it is believed to have been introduced from Madagascar.

No large African animals (elephants, giraffes, lions, crocodiles, zebras or antelopes) are found on the Comoros, despite the islands being relatively close to the mainland.

These habitats are home to species of freshwater and brackish water fish, frogs, waterbirds, dragonflies, and caddisflies.

[8] The other Comoro Islands are surrounded by fringing reefs, which form a narrow platform extending a short distance from the coast.

Other seagrass beds occur at Mitsamiouli, Malé and Ouroveni around Grande Comore and at Bimbini and Ouani around Anjouan.

Between 1993 and 1998 the Thalassodendron ciliatum beds at Moheli Marine Park were destroyed by a large sediment influx into the lagoon from upland deforestation coupled with high rainfall.

[11] Other marine fauna include the green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas), most abundantly on Mohéli and Mayotte where they still come to lay eggs, and the coelacanth, a deepwater fish known from fossils over 300 million years old.

Since 2006, the former president of the Union of the Comoros, Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, who is originally from the island of Anjouan, has been in open conflict with the authorities of Anjouan, a conflict which ended in a landing of the National Army of Development in order to re-establish the authority of the Union on the island.