Fogo is basicaly one large volcano which is over 3000m in height. The volcanic landscape is beautiful and you are still able to see the landscape as it was formed by previous eruptions. Fogo's landscape is very dry and arid in the south but humid and fertile in the north.

Fogo is a truly spectacular island. The name Fogo means 'fire' and alludes to the volcano, which has one of the most perfectly shaped cones in the world. The volcanic peak is not much more than 200 years old, and a second, much smaller peak was formed in 1995. Both peaks lie inside the partly collapsed giant crater of an ancient volcano that forms the island itself (see sketch below). The island's capital São Filipe is perhaps the country's most beautiful city, with so-called sobrado houses from the colonial period, neatly kept squares with flowers, and a black sandy beach below. To the East of the volcano, on the slope above Mosteiros there is a densely forested area (the greenest in Cape Verde) and plantations of coffee and fruits.

The island of FOGO west of Santiago, is almost round in shape, and looks as if it is just a volcanic mountain. The surface area is 476 Km2 and, although only the fourth biggest island of the Archipelago, it is the highest with the top of the volcano reaching a height of 2829 m.
The volcano is in fact the main tourist attraction of the island. The volcanic cone rises from a sort of plateau about 8 km in diameter, called CHÃ DAS CALDEIRAS the walls on the western side reach almost 1000 m and end in a crater 500 meters in diameter and 180 meters deep.
This is truly the most spectacular scenery in the whole of the Archipelago. The original volcanic cone must, at one time, have reached a height of 3500 m. The volcano was active right up to the XVIII century, when the main cone ceased activity and all that remained as testimony to it were the vulcanic vapours and deposits of sulphur.

There have been sporadic eruptions and the last one was in 1951, when the lava poured out of one of the two chimneys on the southern side of the volcano.