Reunion can be found floating in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar.

Not much is known about Reunion before the Portuguese stumbled on it in 1513 although Arab traders may have known it as “western island”. The French landed there in 1638 when they deposited a dozen mutineers there from Madagascar. Later those convicts were brought back to France and in 1649 France officially settled in and named the island Ile Bourbon after the Royal House of Bourbon, not after the drink.