Pico Basilé

Where is Pico Basilé?

Pico Basilé is part of the Shield volcano on Bioko.

You will find it in: Equatorial Guinea.

Summit: 3.588° N, 8.762° E

The story behind it

Pico Basilé is a shield volcano, which means its slopes rise gently over a very wide base instead of forming a sharp cone, and it belongs to a line of volcanoes that runs from the Gulf of Guinea onto the African mainland. Climbing it is like travelling through several countries at once: cocoa gardens and palms at the bottom, tall rainforest in the middle, then cloud forest wrapped in moss, and finally open ground with grass and low bushes near the top. Monkeys found only on Bioko live in these forests, among them the drill and several colourful guenons, and the whole mountain is protected as a national park. A road climbs towards the summit, where masts and antennas stand in the wind, and on clear days the view goes over the capital Malabo to the sea and even to the mainland coast.

Find it on the globe

Pico Basilé is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.