Nukutavake

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Nukutavake
NASA image of Nukutavake
NASA image of Nukutavake
Waters Pacific Ocean
Archipelago Tuamotu Archipelago
Geographical location 19 ° 16 '50 "  S , 138 ° 47' 7"  W Coordinates: 19 ° 16 '50 "  S , 138 ° 47' 7"  W.
Nukutavake (French Polynesia)
Nukutavake
length 5.2 km
width 1.3 km
surface 5.5 km²
Residents 170 (2007)
31 inhabitants / km²
main place Tavananui
Location of Nukutavake (1)
Location of Nukutavake (1)

Nukutavake is an island in the Tuamotu Archipelago in the Pacific Ocean . Politically it belongs to French Polynesia and there to the community of the same name Nukutavake . Neighboring atolls are Pinaki , 15 kilometers southeast and Vairaatea , 38 kilometers southwest.

Nukutavake is one of the archipelago's few upscale atolls . The lower-lying regions are seen as a former lagoon , which is now filled with silt . Nukutavake is about 5.2 km long, up to 1.3 km wide and has an area of ​​5.5 km². Nukutavake Airport is located in the southeast of the island.

The island was discovered for Europe in 1767 by the British navigator Samuel Wallis with his ship Dolphin and named Reine Charlotte . At the sight of the ship, the entire population fled with their boats to avoid a conflict. Frederick Beechey , who visited the island in 1826, found it uninhabited. Today, 170 inhabitants (as of 2007) live on Nukutavake, who mainly live in the main town of Tavananui in the northeast of the island. The main livelihoods of the population are fishing and copra production.

Allegedly, most of the ancestors of today's residents, all prisoners, were brought to the island by the ship's captain Bully Hayes as part of the blackbirding in the early 1870s .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Philip Edwards: The Story of the Voyage. Sea-Narratives in Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004, ISBN 0521604265 , p. 93.
  2. ↑ Institut Statistique de Polynésie Française (ISPF) - Recensement de la population 2007 ( Memento of April 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (French; PDF; 22 kB)
  3. ↑ George Lewis Becke : The Strange Adventure of James Shervinton and Other Stories. London 1902, p. 239