Saint-Denis (, , unofficially Saint-Denis de La Réunion for disambiguation; ) is the prefecture (administrative capital) of the French overseas department and region of Réunion, in the Indian Ocean. It is located at the island's northernmost point, close to the mouth of the Rivière Saint-Denis. Saint-Denis is the most populous commune in the French overseas departments and the nineteenth most populous in all of France. At the 2020 census, there were 315,080 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Saint-Denis (as defined by INSEE), 153,001 of whom lived in the city (commune) of Saint-Denis proper and the remainder in the neighbouring communes of La Possession, Sainte-Marie, Sainte-Suzanne, Saint-André, and Bras-Panon. History Foundation Saint-Denis was founded in 1669 by Étienne Regnault, first governor of Bourbon Island (as La Réunion was then called), on the northern side of the island, where a larger and more fertile plain was deemed more propitious for the development of settlements than the drier and more barren area of Saint-Paul on the western side of the island. Saint-Paul had been the site of Bourbon Island's first French settlement in 1663 due to the better anchorage and wind conditions of the western coast. The new settlement was named Saint-Denis after the name of a ship owned by one of governor Regnault's friends, which had landed in Réunion in 1668. Saint-Denis and Saint-Paul shared the role of colonial capital of Bourbon for some years, with the governor and colonial council staying alternatively in the two settlements, until Saint-Denis was chosen as the permanent location of Bourbon's colonial government in 1738. 18th century and Napoleonic Wars Soon after 1738, work was started to establish a seaport in the little bay of Le Barachois, on the eastern side of the Saint-Denis River, to replace the port of Saint-Paul, but its site did not offer a safe haven, due to unpredictable winds and tides, as well as frequent high surf which forced ships to unload their cargo in the open roadstead away from the shore, from where it was carried to the shore with the use of a mobile pier. Improvements in the 19th century resulted in the construction of a small artificial harbor where surf boats in charge of unloading cargo from larger ships could be protected from winds and swells, but it was regularly damaged by cyclones. Eventually it was replaced by a new and much larger artificial harbor built on