Maltese people Maltese people The Maltese (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to Malta, and identified with the Maltese language. Malta is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Included within the ethnic group defined by the Maltese people are the "Gozitans" (, ) who inhabit Malta's sister island, Gozo. The current Maltese people, characterised by the use of the Maltese language and by Roman Catholicism, are the descendants – through much mixing and hybridisation – of colonists from Sicily and Calabria who repopulated the Maltese islands in the beginning of the second millennium after a two-century lapse of
Nuyts Archipelago Nuyts was in the region of the archipelago in January 1627. Both Flinders and Nicolas Baudin, who also explored the area in 1802, named several of the islands. During the early 19th Century the archipelago and adjacent coast were used as a base for sealing and for whaling, usually by Hobart-based entrepreneurs who established whaling stations on St Peter Island as well as at Fowlers Bay and Streaky Bay. St Francis Island was named in 1627 by Thijssen after his patron saint, at it is the second largest island in the archipelago. It is covered by a mix of grassland,