{| border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="right" width="300px" style="font-size: 98%; border: gray solid 1px; border-collapse: collapse;"
|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| align="center" colspan="2" bgcolor="#d3d3d3"|Calhau
|-
! align="center" colspan="2" bgcolor="#efefef" | Statistics
|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| Island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

: || São Vicente

São Vicente, Cape Verde

São Vicente , also Son Visent or Son Sent in Cape Verdean Creole, is one of the Barlavento islands of Cape Verde. It is located between the islands of Santo Antão and Santa Luzia, with the Canal de São Vicente separating it from Santo Antão.- Geography :The island is roughly rectangular in shape...

|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| Municipality: || São Vicente
|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| Parish: || Nossa Senhora da Luz
{| border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="right" width="300px" style="font-size: 98%; border: gray solid 1px; border-collapse: collapse;"
|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| align="center" colspan="2" bgcolor="#d3d3d3"|Calhau
|-
! align="center" colspan="2" bgcolor="#efefef" | Statistics
|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| Island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

: || São Vicente

São Vicente, Cape Verde

São Vicente , also Son Visent or Son Sent in Cape Verdean Creole, is one of the Barlavento islands of Cape Verde. It is located between the islands of Santo Antão and Santa Luzia, with the Canal de São Vicente separating it from Santo Antão.- Geography :The island is roughly rectangular in shape...

|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| Municipality: || São Vicente
|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| Parish: || Nossa Senhora da Luz
{| border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="right" width="300px" style="font-size: 98%; border: gray solid 1px; border-collapse: collapse;"
|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| align="center" colspan="2" bgcolor="#d3d3d3"|Calhau
|-
! align="center" colspan="2" bgcolor="#efefef" | Statistics
|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| Island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

: || São Vicente

São Vicente, Cape Verde

São Vicente , also Son Visent or Son Sent in Cape Verdean Creole, is one of the Barlavento islands of Cape Verde. It is located between the islands of Santo Antão and Santa Luzia, with the Canal de São Vicente separating it from Santo Antão.- Geography :The island is roughly rectangular in shape...

|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| Municipality: || São Vicente
|---- bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
| Parish: || Nossa Senhora da Luz
|}

Calhau (Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

 for small beach

Beach

A beach is a geological landform along the shoreline of an ocean, sea, lake or river. It usually consists of loose particles which are often composed of rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles or cobblestones...

 rock

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...

 or pebble

Pebble

A pebble is a clast of rock with a particle size of 4 to 64 millimetres based on the Krumbein phi scale of sedimentology. Pebbles are generally considered to be larger than granules and smaller than cobbles . A rock made predominantly of pebbles is termed a conglomerate...

) is a small fishing village on the east coast of the island of São Vicente

São Vicente, Cape Verde

São Vicente , also Son Visent or Son Sent in Cape Verdean Creole, is one of the Barlavento islands of Cape Verde. It is located between the islands of Santo Antão and Santa Luzia, with the Canal de São Vicente separating it from Santo Antão.- Geography :The island is roughly rectangular in shape...

, Cape Verde

Cape Verde

The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...

, 15 km east of the island capital of Mindelo

Mindelo

For the parish in Portugal, see Mindelo, PortugalMindelo , is a port city in the northern part of the island of São Vicente in Cape Verde. Mindelo is also the seat of the parish of Nossa Senhora da Luz, and this island's municipality...

. Calhau is situated on a branch that connects with the main road linking to Mindelo

Mindelo

For the parish in Portugal, see Mindelo, PortugalMindelo , is a port city in the northern part of the island of São Vicente in Cape Verde. Mindelo is also the seat of the parish of Nossa Senhora da Luz, and this island's municipality...

 and south to Topim. Much of the area is grassy and rocky with a couple of trees, especially within the roads. The GDP for the community is very low.

The area has nice sandy beaches for baths in the sea, a small fishing port and a bay with the same name. During clear days, the island of Santa Luzia

Santa Luzia, Cape Verde

Santa Luzia is an island of the Barlavento archipelago in Cape Verde located between São Nicolau and São Vicente. The area is 35 km² . The highest point is Monte Grande elevating 395 m...

 can also be seen.

4 km south of Calhau is the extinct volcanic crater

Volcanic crater

A volcanic crater is a circular depression in the ground caused by volcanic activity. It is typically a basin, circular in form within which occurs a vent from which magma erupts as gases, lava, and ejecta. A crater can be of large dimensions, and sometimes of great depth...

 named Viana.

Atmospheric observatory

1 km further East of the beach at Praia Grande lies a large international atmospheric and climate observatory (OBSERVATÓRIO ATMOSFÉRICO DE CABO VERDE: HUMBERTO DUARTE FONSECA), composed of containers and scaffolding meteorology masts. The observatory was built in 2006 and is operated by INMG, the national meteorological service. Scientists from Germany and the United Kingdom operate instruments here.

See for more details: http://www.york.ac.uk/capeverde.

The observatory was recently in the news following the discovery of unexpected low level ozone loss over the oceans in this region. http://www.ncas.ac.uk/communications/images_for_nature_paper_destruction_of_ozone.html

Nearest communities and geographical features

• Topim, south
• Madeiral, west
• Monte Verde
  Monte Verde, Cape Verde
  Monte Verde is the tallest mountain in the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde. The mountain is located east of the city of Mindelo, the island's main city...
  
  , northwest

Other

Calhau has only a school, a beach and a few squares praças. The nearest secondary school is in east Mindelo

Mindelo

For the parish in Portugal, see Mindelo, PortugalMindelo , is a port city in the northern part of the island of São Vicente in Cape Verde. Mindelo is also the seat of the parish of Nossa Senhora da Luz, and this island's municipality...

. Prior to the 1990s, Calhau was left without a school and other needs.

External links

Photos on www.mindelo.info