Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean , some 1, km 1, miles west of the mainland of the continent of Africa , with the Southern African nations of Angola and Namibia on its southwestern coast being the closest nations geographically. The island is around 1, km 1, mi west of the coast of southwestern South Africa , and 4, km 2, mi east of the major seaport city of Rio de Janeiro , Brazil in South America. Saint Helena measures about 16 by 8 km 10 by 5 mi and had a population of 4, in the census.
D β, reigned β , of the ancient Roman Empire. For about the next four centuries, the island was an important stopover for ships between Europe and Asia sailing around the African continent and its southern Cape of Good Hope , before the opening of the shortcut Suez Canal in , in Egypt between the Mediterranean and Red Seas.
Until the opening of its airport in , the primary method of reaching Saint Helena was a 6-day journey by sea, most recently since on the RMS St Helena passenger steamship liner. Saint Helena is known for being the site of Napoleon Bonaparte 's second and longest period of exile , following his final defeat in June , until his death there six years later. This tradition was reviewed by a paper [ 6 ] which concluded that the Portuguese chronicles [ 7 ] published at least fifty years after the sighting are the sole primary source for the discovery.
A paper notes that 21 May is the feast day of St Helena in the Eastern Orthodox and most Protestant churches, but the Roman Catholic one is in August, and the day and the month were first quoted in by Jan Huyghen van Linschoten , who was probably mistaken, because the island was discovered several decades before the Reformation and the start of Linschoten's Protestant faith. When Linschoten arrived at the island on 12 May , he reported seeing carvings made by visiting seamen on a fig tree that were dated as early as A third discovery story, told by 16th-century historian Gaspar Correia , holds that the island was found by Portuguese nobleman and warrior Dom Garcia de Noronha , who sighted the island on his way to India in late or early His pilots entered the island onto their charts, and this event likely led to the island being used as a regular stopover for rest and replenishment for ships en route from India to Europe, from that date until well into the 17th century.
The Portuguese found the island uninhabited, with an abundance of trees and fresh water. They imported livestock, fruit trees, and vegetables, and built a chapel and one or two houses. Visits by British explorers followed and, once Saint Helena's location was more widely known, British ships of war began to lie in wait in the area to attack Portuguese India carracks on their way home.
