ADVENTURE

Tristan da Cunha: one of the most remote places in the world

There are places that we would really find hard to believe are inhabited. This is the case, for example, with the British archipelago known as Tristan da Cunha, which is also the name of the main island. Located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, it has no seaports or airports, and it is one of the most remote inhabited places in the world.

To give you a sense of where it is located, it is just under 3000 km from Cape Town, and over 2000 km from the Island of Sant'Elena. English-speaking, it is under the rule of King Charles III, successor to Elizabeth II.

Only the main island alone is inhabited; all the other islands that make up the archipelago are totally deserted.

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The Tristan da Cunha archipelago
One of the most remote inhabited places in the world is the archipelago of Tristan da Cunha, which is also the name of the main island. On this island is the "capital," or Edinburgh of the Seven Seas (called by locals The Settlement). A predominantly mountainous island, it is an active volcanic place, so much so that even in 1900 it was the scene of violent eruptions
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Where it is located and how the archipelago is formed
To make it clear where this archipelago is located, it is 2810 km from Cape Town. It belongs to the British Overseas Territory of Sant'Elena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and is located 2172 km south of the island of St. Helena. The archipelago of Tristan da Cunha consists of the main island that bears the name (98 km² large), and is the only inhabited one. Then there are a number of uninhabited islands: the island Inaccessible, the islands Nightingale and the island Gough (located 350 km southeast of the main island). The only other thing present on these islands is a weather station.
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The language of the archipelago
The official language of Tristan da Cunha, reads tristandc.com, is English; however, a Creole dialect is spoken on the island, influenced by the origins of its founders and consisting of English, Italian, Ligurian, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Gaelic words.
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The climate in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
The capital, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, is at the same latitude as Melbourne, capital of the state of Victoria, in Australia. The city has a climate really influenced by the ocean and also by tropical masses. The temperature ranges each day and each season are minimal. The lowest, average, temperature in January (thus in the summer period) is 17 °C, the highest temperature hardly passes 25 °C. The average annual temperature is 15.1 °C.
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How to get to the archipelago
Because of the remote location of the islands, connections are really complicated. There is no airport, but also no port, so boats have to anchor offshore and then bring people in on smaller boats. A group of tourists is shown in the photo. South Africa's fishing boats offer regular service to the island and take 5-7 days to make the journey.
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A place rich in biodiversity but threatened
The remote area has fostered the development of enormous biodiversity, both flora and fauna. However, the animals are threatened by human hunting and also by the inability to defend themselves from animals brought by humans, as they have never had predators (goats, sheep, dogs and cats). Note the presence of many typical species, such as many varieties of albatross (a seabird, pictured). It is also one of the northernmost areas where penguins can be encountered. The waters have not yet been much studied.
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How the archipelago's economy is organized
Reading on "Tristan da Cunha Government and the Tristan da Cunha Association", one can see how all land is publicly owned, and it is also forbidden for people not native to the island to buy land or settle on it. One source of the island's income comes from the sale of stamps and coins for collectors from around the world; limited, however, due to the island's isolated location, is the income from tourist activity and souvenir sales. Very important is the cultivation of potatoes, in the flat area called the Potato Patches.
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Surnames on the archipelago
In the 2016 census, the total inhabitants were 293 (s.ainthelena.gov.sh). As noted on "Genealogy and genes: tracing the founding fathers of Tristan da Cunha, European Journal of Human Genetics" there are 8 different surnames on the island: two are of Genoese origin (Lavarello and Repetto, handed down by two shipwrecked people from Camogli, who landed in 1892 ), two are English (Swain and Patterson), two are American (Hagan and Rogers), one is Scottish (Glass) and one is Dutch (Green).
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07/05/2024
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