Pico de São Tomé

Where is Pico de São Tomé?

Pico de São Tomé is part of the Central highland of São Tomé Island.

You will find it in: São Tomé and Príncipe.

Summit: 0.269° N, 6.542° E

The story behind it

The island of São Tomé is the top of a volcano that grew up from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and Pico de São Tomé is its highest cone, built of dark basalt rock. Wet winds from the sea push against the mountain, so the forest up there is soaked almost every day and hung with mosses, ferns, orchids and begonias, a misty jungle that islanders call the obô. Many birds, snails and plants of this island live nowhere else on Earth, which is why the whole central highland is protected as a natural park. Lower on the slopes, cocoa and coffee trees grow in old plantations, and the smell of drying cocoa beans drifts through the villages. The path to the summit starts at Bom Sucesso, climbs steeply over slippery mud and roots, and fills a long day for the way up and back.

Find it on the globe

Pico de São Tomé 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.