Editing Malabo (section)

===European discovery and Portuguese occupation===
[[File:Isla de Fernando Poo – Vista de la playa y ciudad de Santa Isabel.jpg|thumb|left|upright]]
In 1472, in an attempt to find a new route to [[India]], the Portuguese navigator [[Fernão do Pó]],  encountered the island of Bioko, which he called ''Formosa''.<ref name="Adrian2013">Roman Adrian Cybriwsky, ''Capital Cities around the World: An Encyclopedia of Geography, History, and Culture'', ABC-CLIO, USA, 2013, p. 174</ref> Later, the island was named after its discoverer, Fernando Pó. At the beginning of the 16th century, specifically in 1507, the Portuguese Ramos de Esquivel made a first attempt at colonization on the island of Fernando Pó. He established a factory in ''Concepción'' (now [[Riaba]]) and developed plantations of [[sugarcane]].{{cn|date=November 2022}}

With the treaties of San Ildefonso in 1777 and [[Treaty of El Pardo (1778)|El Pardo]] in 1778, during the reign of the Spanish King [[Charles III of Spain|Charles III]], the Portuguese gave to the Spanish the islands of Fernando Pó, [[Annobón]], and the right to conduct trade in the mainland, an area of influence of approximately 800&nbsp;000 [[Square kilometre|km<sup>2</sup>]] in Africa, in exchange for the [[Colonia del Sacramento]] in [[Río de la Plata]] and the [[Santa Catarina Island]] off the Brazilian coast (occupied by the Spaniards) during a recent war trying to stop Portuguese expansion in the [[Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata]]. The area stretched from the [[Niger Delta]] to the mouth of [[Ogooué River]] — in current [[Gabon]] — and included, besides the islands of Fernando Pó and [[Annobón]], the islets of Corisco and Elobeyes. Spain wasn't interested in these lands because Spain already had vast colonies in other parts of the world, Spain lost interest in Spanish Guinea in 1827 and authorized the British to use the island as a base for suppressing the [[Slavery in Africa|slave trade]].{{cn|date=November 2022}}