Petite-Île (, literally ''Little Isle'') is a commune on the French island and department of

Réunion Réunion (; ; ; known as before 1848) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France. Part of the Mascarene Islands, it is located approximately east of the isl ...

. The commune is bordered by the communes of Saint-Joseph to the east and Saint-Pierre to the west. The commune gets its name from the uninhabited islet off of its coast, the only such islet near Réunion that has vegetation. The commune was established in 1935.

Geography

Climate

Petite-Île has a

tropical monsoon climate An area of tropical monsoon climate (occasionally known as a sub-equatorial, tropical wet climate or a tropical monsoon and trade-wind littoral climate) is a tropical climate subtype that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification category ' ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

''Am''). The average annual temperature in Petite-Île is . The average annual rainfall is with February as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in January, at around , and lowest in July, at around . The highest temperature ever recorded in Petite-Île was on 21 January 2009; the coldest temperature ever recorded was on 2 August 2001.

Population

Economy

The main economy in the commune is

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

-based, with

cane sugar Sucrose, a disaccharide, is a sugar composed of glucose and fructose subunits. It is produced naturally in plants and is the main constituent of white sugar. It has the molecular formula . For human consumption, sucrose is extracted and refined ...

plantations, along with fruit and vegetable farming.

References

External links