Malabo, city (1997 est. pop. 50,000), capital of Equatorial Guinea, on Bioko island, in the Gulf of Guinea. It is the chief port and commercial center of Bioko. Fish processing is the city's main industry, and cacao and coffee are the leading exports. Malabo was founded in 1827 by the British on land leased from Spain as a base for the suppression of the slave trade and was called Port Clarence, or Clarencetown; the Spanish later called the town Santa Isabel. An international airport is on the city's outskirts. Much of the city's large European population left after rioting occurred in the late 1960s; in the 1970s, the population declined again as Nigerian workers returned to their own country.

formerly (until 1973) Santa Isabel

City (pop., 2007 est.: 96,000), capital of Equatorial Guinea. Located on the northern edge of the island of Bioko, it is the republic's commercial and financial centre. The main activity of its harbour is the export of cocoa, timber, and coffee. Its population fluctuated in the 1960s and '70s: the European population declined after 1969 riots there, and the African population declined when Nigerian contract workers returned to Nigeria in the mid 1970s.

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