The Name “Easter Island”
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 1722, while searching for Davis or David’s island and named it Paasch-Eyland (18th century Dutch for "Easter Island"). The island’s official Spanish name, Isla de Pascua, also means "Easter Island". The [...]
Easter Island Climates
The island’s climate is subtropical marine. The lowest temperatures are registered in July and August (18°C – 64°F) and the highest in February (maximum temperature 28°C – 82°F), the summer season in the southern hemisphere. The rainiest month is April, though the island experiences year-round rainfall.
Geography of Easter Island
Easter Island is one of the world’s most isolated inhabited islands. It has a latitude close to that of Caldera, Chile; lies 3,510 km (2,180 mi) west of continental Chile at its nearest point (between Lota and Lebu) and 2,075 km (1,289 mi) east of Pitcairn. (Isla Salas y Gómez, 415 kilometers to the east, [...]
Geology of Easter Island
Easter Island is a volcanic high island, consisting mainly of three extinct coalesced volcanoes: Terevaka (altitude 507 meters) forms the bulk of the island. Two other volcanoes, Poike and Rano Kau, form the eastern and southern headlands and give the island its roughly triangular shape. There are numerous lesser cones and other volcanic features, including [...]
History of Easter Island
The history of Easter Island is rich and controversial. Its inhabitants have endured famines, epidemics, civil war, slave raids and colonialism, and the crash of their ecosystem; their population has declined precipitously more than once. They have left a cultural legacy that has brought them fame disproportionate to their population. Contemporary to the arrival of [...]
Ecology of Easter Island
Easter Island, together with its closest neighbor, the tiny island of Isla Sala y Gómez 415 kilometers (258 mi) further east, is recognized by ecologists as a distinct eco-region, the Rapa Nui subtropical broadleaf forests. Having relatively little rainfall contributed to eventual deforestation. The original subtropical moist broadleaf forests are now gone, but paleobotanical studies [...]
Collapse of the ecosystem in Easter Island
"The overall picture for Easter is the most extreme example of forest destruction in the Pacific, and among the most extreme in the world: the whole forest gone, and all of its tree species extinct." Diamond, Collapse said on How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Trees are sparse on modern Easter Island, rarely forming [...]
Cultures of Easter Island
Mythology The most important myths are: Tangata manu, the Birdman cult which was practiced until the 1860s. Makemake, an important god. Aku-aku, the guardians of the sacred family caves. Moai-kava-kava a ghost man of the Hanau epe (long-ears.) Hekai ite umu pare haonga takapu Hanau epe kai noruego, the sacred chant to appease the aku-aku [...]
Demography of Easter Island
2002 census Population at the 2002 census was 3,791 (3,304 in Hanga Roa alone). 60% were Rapanui, Chileans of European or castizo descent were 39% of the population, and the remaining 1% were Native Americans from mainland Chile. Castizos may include people of European and Rapanui or European, Native American, and Rapanui descent. Rapanui have [...]
Easter Island Administrations
Easter Island shares with Juan Fernández Islands the sui generis constitutional status of special territory of Chile, granted in 2007. A special charter for the island is currently being discussed, therefore it continues to be considered a province of the Valparaíso Region, containing a single commune. Both the province and the commune are called Isla [...]
