What is the story behind Easter Island?
What is the story behind Easter Island?
Easter Island, 24km long by 16km wide, was named by Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen, who landed there on Easter Sunday 1722. Located in the South Pacific, it is one of the most isolated inhabited islands in the world – the nearest inhabited land is Pitcairn Island (colonised by the Bounty mutineers) 2,015km away.
Who built Easter Island and why?
The island is most famous for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, called moai, which were created by the early Rapa Nui people. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park.
Where did the Easter Islanders come from?
Linguists estimate Easter Island’s first inhabitants arrived around A.D. 400, and most agree that they came from East Polynesia. The archeological record suggests a somewhat later date of settlement, between 700 and 800. * As early as 5500 B.C. people in Melanesia were voyaging in boats and trading in obsidian.
What landform is Easter Island?
volcanic landforms
The geography of the island is dominated by volcanic landforms, including the large crater Rana Kao at the southwest end of the island and a line of cinder cones that stretch north from the central mountain. A final feature (difficult to see) is the very long runway (Chile’s longest) near Rana Kao.
Who built the moai heads?
Rapa Nui people
The Moai are a collection of large monolithic statues built by the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island.
Do people in Easter Island?
Despite being located at the eastern edge of the Polynesian Triangle and a whopping 3,526 km from the nearest continental mass (the coast of Chile)—making it one of the most isolated human settlements in the world—people do live on Easter Island these days.
Does Easter Island have electricity?
Easter Island’s electricity system is currently 100% dependent on diesel generation. There is 5.6 MW of installed capacity and total electricity generation was 14,082 MWh in 2018. The average demand is 1.3 MW and peak demand is 2 MW.
The Story of Easter Island Easter Island (Rapu Nui) is considered to be the world’s msot isolated habitable land (Wolcott and Conrad 2011). The island is 64 miles², and lies in the Pacific ocean . When Jacob Roggeveen first discovered the island in 1722 he found 47 species of higher plants native to Easter and no animals bigger than insects.
Where did Easter Island get its name?
The name “Easter Island” was given by the island’s first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered it on Easter Sunday (5 April) in 1722, while searching for “Davis Land”. Roggeveen named it Paasch-Eyland (18th-century Dutch for “Easter Island”).
What are some interesting facts about Easter Island?
Interesting Facts on Easter Island Easter Island is one of the world’s most famous yet least visited archaeological sites. Easter Island is a small, hilly and treeless island of volcanic origin. Easter Island is sixty-three square miles in size and has three extinct volcanoes, the tallest rising to 1674 feet.
Do people live on Easter Island?
In fact, about 4,000 beautiful, friendly people live on this magical South Pacific island, and many of them in some interesting, tiny houses. Easter Island, or Rapa Nui , as it’s called by the locals, is actually a territory of Chile, but many of the people who live there are of Polynesian descent.