Farallon de Medinilla

Farallon de Medinilla
Aerial view
Waters	Pacific Ocean
Archipelago	Mariana Islands
Geographical location	16 ° 1 '2 "  N , 146 ° 3' 31"  E Coordinates: 16 ° 1 '2 "  N , 146 ° 3' 31"  E
surface	84.5 ha
Highest elevation	81  m
Residents	uninhabited

Farallon de Medinilla is a small island in the Pacific Ocean . It belongs geographically to the Mariana Islands and politically to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands . The island is named after Don Jose de Medinilla y Pifieda, the Spanish governor of the Mariana Islands from 1812 to 1822.

The island is 72 kilometers north of Saipan . Farallon de Medinilla is a coral island, has an area of ​​0.845 km² and is uninhabited. The highest point on the island is 81 meters above sea level. The vegetation is sparse; there is savanna grass.

From 1899 to 1918 Farallon de Medinilla belonged to the colony of German New Guinea . When the German district administrator Georg Fritz visited the island in May 1901, he found smoke-blackened caves and ceramic shards, from which he concluded that the Chamorros had previously settled .

The island has long been used by the US Navy for bomb testing. In 2012 the tests continued. In 2002, the tests were temporarily banned to protect birds living on the island.

Web links

• Pascal Horst Lehne, Christoph Gäbler: About the Marianas. Lehne-Verlag, Wohldorf 1972.
• A photo of the Farallon de Medinilla
• Page NOAA on Farallon de Medinilla (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Georg Fritz: Journey to the northern Marianas. In: Communications from explorers and scholars from the German protected areas , 1902 (15), pp. 96–118, here p. 98 (pdf, 3.7 MB). See also: Dirk HR Speenemann: Combining Curiosity with Political Skill: The Antiquarian Interests and Cultural Politics of Georg Fritz. In: Micronesian journal of the humanities and social sciences , 2006 (5), pp. 495–504, here p. 498 (English, PDF, 7.6 MB).
2. ↑ 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 ( online (English, PDF, 3.0 MB)), p. 3.
3. ↑ Navy granted use of Farallon de Medinilla . ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Saipan Tribune , May 23, 2002 (English, accessed January 13, 2013).