About MALTA ISL

Centrally located in the beautiful blue Mediterranean,

Malta is one of the most popular vacation spots in Southern Europe. Together with its sister islands, Gozo and Comino, Malta offers all of the ingredients for a perfect holiday a fascinating history, countless possibilities for sightseeing, picturesque villages and spectacular scenery, opportunities for learning as well as relaxation,

and a chance to explore a different culture in exotic surroundings, but with that reassuring feeling of being always amongst friends.

It is a hospitable, safe, English speaking group of islands; a treasure house of antiquities, wrapped in a scenic landscape of stunning beauty all at an unbelievable price/value! The answer to your search is Malta.

Today, Malta is a magnet for travelers from all over the world who find in these islands all that they are looking for, an excellent Year round climate.

There are no cold winds, fog, snow, or frost in the Maltese Islands. The average annual rainfall is about 20 inches. More than six hours of daily sunshine in the winter and ten hours in the summer make for a warm inviting climate. Winter temperatures range in the 50s to 60s and in summer the range is in the 70s to 80s.

HISTORY OF MALTA

The population numbers circa 370,000. Of these, 28,000 live in Gozo. A few farmers only inhabit Comino. Because of their strategic position, Malta and Gozo have been inhabited for the past 7,000 years.

The Maltese archipelago 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 two islands have a long and varied prehistoric period: Neolithic, Copper and Bronze age civilizations lasted more than 4,000 years; one can still admire vestiges of those remote times in form of impressive stone temples, a unique hypogeum and remains of skilful handicrafts.

The first known people to settle in Malta were the Phoenicians, who reached these shores on their trading ventures in the 9th century BC. Their Punic kinsmen, the Carthaginians, who were eventually conquered by the Romans in the 3rd century BC, succeeded them. The Romans governed these islands until the division of the Roman Empire in the 4th century AD.

Arabs from North Africa occupied the Islands from the 9th to the 13th century and when the last Arab rulers were driven out in the year 1249, they left behind them notable imprints of their culture on the language of the Maltese people.

After the Norman overlords, Swabian and Angevin dynasties ruled for brief periods and 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 these shores 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.