What country owns Easter Island?

In 1888, Chile annexed Easter Island, leasing much of the land for sheep raising. The Chilean government appointed a civilian governor for Easter Island in 1965, and the island’s residents became full Chilean citizens.

Is Easter Island part of New Zealand?

Even though Easter Island is a territory of Chile and Spanish is an official language (English is widely spoken), the history and the native inhabitants of the island are inextricably linked to Tahiti and New Zealand through Polynesian ancestry, language roots and culture.

Is Easter Island part of a continent?

What continent is Easter Island in? Because Rapa Nui, the westernmost territory of Chile, is located in Polynesia, it would be best to answer that geographically Easter Island is part of the continent of Oceania although politically it belongs to South America.

What nationality is Easter Island?

Easter Island, Spanish Isla de Pascua, also called Rapa Nui, Chilean dependency in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is the easternmost outpost of the Polynesian island world. It is famous for its giant stone statues.

What language is spoken on Easter Island?

Islanders smile, sing and dance in polyester costumes to cater to the mostly Spanish-speaking spenders. Ever since Chile annexed Easter Island more than a century ago, the Spanish language has been chipping away at the Polynesian-based language called Rapa Nui.

Why are there no trees on Easter Island?

Easter Island was covered with palm trees for over 30,000 years, but is treeless today. There is good evidence that the trees largely disappeared between 1200 and 1650. However there is evidence the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans) was present from 900 and it seems clear that these rats caused widespread deforestation.

Does Easter Island have a flag?

The flag of Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Te Reva Reimiro) is the flag of Easter Island, a special territory of Chile. It was first flown in public alongside the national flag on 9 May 2006.

What really happened on Easter Island?

According to Easter Island: The Truth Revealed, approximately 1,500 to 2,000 people – half the population – were taken in 1862 in a raid by slave traders from Peru to work there, predominately in agriculture. They brought disease with them and much of the remaining population was decimated.

Is there tourism on Easter Island?

The biggest tourist attractions on Easter Island are the Moai standing upon ceremonial platforms called Ahu.

Are there any Easter Islanders left?

The Rapa Nui are the indigenous Polynesian people of Easter Island. At the 2017 census there were 7,750 island inhabitants—almost all living in the village of Hanga Roa on the sheltered west coast.

How tall are the Easter Island statues?

The isolated Rapa Nui developed a distinct architectural and artistic culture that weathered the centuries. Rapa Nui’s mysterious moai statues stand in silence but speak volumes about the achievements of their creators. The stone blocks, carved into head-and-torso figures, average 13 feet (4 meters) tall and 14 tons.

Do humans live on Easter Island?

Despite being located at the eastern edge of the Polynesian Triangle and a whopping 3,526 km from the nearest continental mass (the coast of Chile)—making it one of the most isolated human settlements in the world— people do live on Easter Island these days.

How did humans get to Easter Island?

Linguists estimate Easter Island’s first inhabitants arrived around AD 400, and most agree that they came from East Polynesia. These linguistic links point to a genealogical bond that ties the people of the Pacific to one another. Indeed, in 1994, DNA from 12 Easter Island skeletons was found to be Polynesian.

Why is it called Easter Island?

Etymology. 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 (5 April) in 1722, while searching for “Davis Land”. The island’s official Spanish name, Isla de Pascua, also means “Easter Island”.