A Brief History of Malta and Gozo

Gozo is part of the Maltese archipelago, which consists of three islands: Malta, Gozo and Comino. Malta, the largest island, is 237 sq. kms in area; Gozo is 68 sq. kms and Comino, 2 sq. kms. The population of the islands is about 370,000. Of these, 28,000 live in Gozo, whilst Comino has only a few farmers living on it.

Situated in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, the Maltese islands have always been strategically important. For this reason, Malta and Gozo have been inhabited for the past 7,000 years.

Signs of the past be seen on both Gozo and Malta, especially the Gygantija temples, in Xargha, which are older than Stone Henge.

The Phoenicians were the first known people to settle in Malta. They are believed to have reached the Maltese Islands in the 9th century BC. After the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians occupied the islands until the were vanquished by the Romans in the 3rd century BC, who governed the islands until the break up of the Roman Empire in the 4th century AD.

Arabs from North Africa occupied the Islands from the 9th to the 13th century. The last Arab rulers were driven out in the year 1249, but their legacy can be seen in the culture and the language to this day.

Then the Norman overlords, Swabian and Angevin dynasties ruled for brief periods, until at the beginning of the 14th century, the Islands fell under Aragonese domination. In 1530, the King of Spain, Emperor Charles V, granted the Islands on fief to the international Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.

The Knights administered the Islands for 268 years until 1798, when Napoleon Bonaparte drove them from the Maltese Islands and occupied the country in the name of the French Republic. Following a brief occupation the French were forced to surrender after two years of a land and sea blockade by combined British and Maltese forces, and in 1800, Malta became a part of the British Empire.

In 1964, Malta attained its Independence. and ten years later, in 1974, it was declared a Republic within the Commonwealth. Until the 1960s, the Maltese economy depended mostly on the British services and the Naval Dockyard.

After independence, industry and tourism advanced at a fast pace, and at present Malta and Gozo have established a good industrial base and flourishing tourist enterprises.

The people speak their own tongue - Maltese, a language of Semitic origin. Through the ages, many foreign words, particularly Italian, became part of the language, and Maltese is the only Semitic language written in Latin characters.