CORISCO, the name of a bay and an island on the Guinea coast, West Africa. The bay is bounded north by Cape San Juan (I° Io' N.) and south by Cape Esterias (o° 36' N.), and is about 31 m. across, while it extends inland some 15 miles. The bay is much encumbered with sandbanks, and the southern entrance to it is obstructed by the Bana bank, which extends for 9 miles. The bay encloses many small islands and islets, some submerged at high water, giving rise to a native saying that "half the islands live under water." The principal islands are Great and Little Elobey, and Corisco.
Corisco island, the largest of the group, is some 3m. long by I4m. in breadth and has an area of about 51 square miles. On a miniature scale it possesses mountains and valleys, rivers, lakes, forests and swamps, grassland and bushland, moorland and park land. The forests supply ebony and logwood for export. The natives, who number about i,000, are a Bantu-Negro tribe called Benga. Corisco and the other islands named, together with Anno bon (q.v.), form a district of the colony of Spanish Guinea. Little Elobey (area 35ac., pop. about 25o) has a better climate than the other islands. It is the seat of government and has European trading establishments. Great Elobey covers three-quarters of a square mile, and has about 120 inhabitants. The islands were annexed to Spain in 1846.
See Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa ch. xvii. (1897) ; E. L. Perea, "Guinea espafiola : La isla de Corisco," in Revista de geog. colon. y mercantil (Madrid, 1906), and Spanish Guinea, a British Foreign Office handbook (192o).