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Petit Raffray



Map, satellite image, and topographic (terrain) map for Petit Raffray, Mauritius (courtesy of GoogleEarth)




Country: Mauritius
Region/Administrative division: North District, Rivière du Rempart
Categorized as: village
Population: The population of Petit Raffray is 9117 (July 2011) according to the GeoNames geographical database.


Petit Raffray

The name Petit Raffray may be misleading. It is not as small as the name implies. It is in fact a large village. It has a population of around nine thousand inhabitants: planters, labourers and civil servants. The majority are of Indian origin. It can be reached from Port Louis via Plaine des Papayes, and expressway. The coastal resorts; Grand Bay, Pereybere and Cap Malheureux are also nearby.
Petit Raffray is an agricultural village cultivating sugarcane and vegetables. According to Dr Guy Rouillard, the author of ‘’L’Histoire des domaines sucriers de l’Ile Maurice’’, Jean Rose Daruty acquired lands in Rivière du Rempart and built a sugar factory, using vacuum for the first time to cook sugar in Mauritius in 1844. The sugar factory ceased its activities in 1865 and part of the property was sold out. The village is named after Guillaume Olivier Raffray [1757-1837] who was a rich planter and landowner in Rivière du Rempart.
Some historians say that the name of Petit Raffray is due to the fact that the place was inherited by the younger brother. He owned large tracts of land, which included also some 10 acres (that was the smallest part of the concession inherited) in the locality known as Petit Raffray (Petit = Small). There are the vestiges of two olds windmill and the traces of old sugar factory.
Nearby, at 700 m from the station, the small forest of Daruty (approx 125 acres) is a green oasis where to walk in peace, to do sport and meditation.
The village has a primary and secondary school, a temple, a soccer field, a dispensary, clubs and socio-religious associations and a Old People’s home; but do not have certain basic services to urban agglomerations: no City Hall, no fire service, no sewerage, no police station… (Fire service & police station are about 5 Km, 3 miles in Goodlands village).