Asuncion (island)

Asuncion
Aerial view of Asuncion
Waters	Pacific Ocean
Archipelago	Mariana Islands
Geographical location	19 ° 41 ′ 33 "  N , 145 ° 24 ′ 13"  E Coordinates: 19 ° 41 ′ 33 "  N , 145 ° 24 ′ 13"  E
length	3.3 km
width	3 km
surface	7.9 km²
Highest elevation	Asuncion 857  m
Residents	uninhabited

Asuncion ( English Asuncion Island , cham. Assongsong ) is a small, uninhabited volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean . It belongs geographically to the archipelago of the Marianas and politically to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands .

Geography and history

Asuncion is 37 kilometers southeast of the Maug Islands and about 100 kilometers north of Agrigan Island . It is a good 600 km away from Saipan , the main island of the Northern Mariana Islands. The 3.3 km long and about 3 km wide, elliptically shaped island has an area of ​​7.9 km². Asuncion is formed by the stratovolcano of the same name , which rises up to 857 meters from the sea and had its last recorded eruption in 1906.

From a European perspective, Asuncion was discovered in 1669 by the Spanish missionary Diego Luis de Sanvitores . Like the Maug Islands was Asuncion to 1695 by Chamorros lived in before the people, later first to Saipan to Guam deported was.

From 1899 to 1918, the island, like all northern Marianas, was part of the German New Guinea colony . In 1903 the island was leased to a Japanese company. Birds were hunted and their feathers were exported to Paris via Japan, where they were made into hat feathers . In 1910, six Japanese bird hunters died of disease on the island.

The island is heavily overgrown with overgrown cultivated plants such as coconut palms , screw trees ( pandanus ) or papaya , alongside native pisonia trees. In the constitution of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the status of the island is set out as an uninhabited area, which is intended to protect and preserve natural resources. Since 2009, the island has been part of the United States' Maraianas Trench Marine National Monument .

literature

• Russell E. Brainard et al .: Coral reef ecosystem monitoring report of the Mariana Archipelago: 2003-2007. (= PIFSC Special Publication , SP-12-01) NOAA Fisheries, Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center 2012 ( Chapter Asuncion (English, PDF, 11.3 MB)).

Web links

Commons : Asuncion  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Pascal Horst Lehne, Christoph Gäbler: About the Marianas. Lehne-Verlag, Wohldorf 1972.
• Asuncion at the Pacific Islands Benthic Habitat Mapping Center (PIBHMC) of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (English)
• Asuncion in the Global Volcanism Program of the Smithsonian Institution (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Brainard, Coral reef ecosystem monitoring report , p. 1 (English, PDF, 11.3 MB).
2. ↑ Gerd Hardach: King Copra. The Mariana Islands under German rule 1899–1914. Steiner, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-515-05762-5 , pp. 106, 133f.
3. ↑ Brainard, Coral reef ecosystem monitoring report , p. 3 (English, PDF, 11.3 MB).