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127-597: Because of the Bonins' isolation, many of their animals and plants have undergone unique evolutionary processes. It has been called "the Galápagos of the Orient " and was named a natural World Heritage Site in 2011. When first reached during the early modern period , the islands were entirely uninhabited. Subsequent research has found evidence of some prehistoric habitation by Micronesians . Upon their repeated rediscoveries,

254-485: A pre-Roman Iberian word meaning " turtle ", the meaning it still has in most dialects . Within Ecuadorian Spanish , however, it is now also used to describe the islands' large tortoises. The islands' name is pronounced [ˈislas ɣaˈlapaɣos] in most dialects of Spanish but [ˈihlah ɣaˈlapaɣoh] by locals. (The accent over the second A does not change the name's pronunciation but moves

381-506: A "silver pass". There is also a sightseeing taxi service, a rental car company, motorized scooter rental services, a bike rental service, and other amenities. Bringing your automobile onto the island is extremely difficult and costly. The Bonins have no airport. During severe accidents, illnesses, and other emergencies, a helicopter is dispatched from the Self-Defense Force post on Iwo Jima . The ShinMaywa US-1 seaplane from

508-598: A 'stepping stone' role in the interaction between Amerindians or Polynesians in prehistory". The lack of fresh water on the islands seems to have limited visits and settlement, if any ever occurred. European discovery of the Galápagos Islands is recorded occurring on 10 March 1535, when the Spanish bishop of Panama Tomás de Berlanga —sailing to Peru to adjudicate a dispute between Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro —drifted off course while his ship

635-506: A 14,500- ton "techno superliner" able to reach a maximum speed of 38 knots (70 km/h; 44 mph) and make the same journey in only 17 hours with a capacity of around 740 passengers. The project was canceled in July 2005, however, due to rising fuel prices and cost overruns of ¥2 billion. Hahajima is reachable via the ferry Hahajima Maru from Chichijima. Ogasawara Village operates a bus service on Chichijima and elderly passengers may use

762-682: A bloody uprising in 1841 that caused most settlers to return to the mainland. Villamil returned to try to rebuild afterwards but was unsuccessful and abandoned the attempt in 1848. The second voyage of HMS Beagle under captain Robert FitzRoy was undertaken to better survey the coasts and harbours of South America for the British Navy 's Hydrographic Department . It reached the Galápagos on 15 September 1835 and—while surveying its islands, channels, and bays—the captain and others on

889-624: A far-fetched legend, especially since the Incas were not typically a seafaring people. A 1952 archaeological survey by Thor Heyerdahl and Arne Skjølsvold found potsherds and other artifacts from several sites on the islands that they claimed suggested visitation by South Americans during the pre-Columbian era . The group located an Inca flute and shards from more than 130 pieces of ceramics, later identified as pre-Incan. However, no remains of graves, ceremonial vessels, or buildings have ever been found, suggesting no permanent settlement occurred before

1016-632: A formal ceremony of annexation on Floreana on 12 February 1832, now celebrated locally as Galápagos Day or the Day of the Province. (Darwin's birthday was the same day, as was Francisco de Orellana 's arrival at the headwaters of the Amazon River in 1542, celebrated on the mainland as Amazon Day .) Villamil arrived in September and established Haven of Peace ( Asilo de Paz or de la Paz ) in

1143-546: A population introduced to the islands only as late as 1850, but is also known from subfossil remains; it went extinct after 1925-26, when Richard Goldschmidt saw the taxidermied pair of the Chichijima museum and was told by locals that merely "half a dozen" animals remained alive The islands are also renowned for the many species of snails that are found across the islands, especially the Mandarina snails. Most of

1270-618: A posthumous, abridged publication of Titsingh's French translation of Sankoku Tsūran Zusetsu . Further settlers arrived in 1846 aboard the whaling ship Howard . They established themselves initially in South Island. One of them, a woman from the Caroline Islands named Hypa, died in 1897 at the age of about 112, after being baptized on her deathbed. Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States Navy visited

1397-469: A reduced issue price. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation insures the deal, which per Reuters was "in the works for more than a year", predating UBS takeover of Credit Suisse. The islands are administered as Ecuador's Galápagos Province , established by presidential decree on 18 February 1973 during the administration of Guillermo Rodríguez Lara . The province is divided into three cantons , each covering groups of islands. The capital

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1524-517: A rise in sea level, greater wave action, and a depletion of nutrients in the water. This cycle can greatly affect the precipitation from one year to another. At Charles Darwin Station, the precipitation during the month of March in the particularly wet year of 1969 was 249.0 mm (9.80 in), but during March 1970 the next year it was only 1.2 mm (0.047 in). There is also a large range in precipitation from one place to another and across

1651-416: Is Puerto Baquerizo Moreno . The largest ethnic group is composed of Ecuadorian Mestizos , the mixed descendants of Spanish colonists and indigenous Native Americans, who arrived mainly in the last century from the continental part of Ecuador . Some descendants of the early European and American colonists on the islands also still remain on the islands. In 1959, approximately 1,000 to 2,000 people called

1778-651: Is an accepted version of this page The Galápagos Islands ( Spanish : Islas Galápagos ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific , located around the Equator 900 km (560 mi) west of the mainland of South America . They form the Galápagos Province of the Republic of Ecuador , with a population of slightly over 33,000 (2020) . The province is divided into

1905-478: Is associated with a sill 2 km (1.2 mi) below the caldera. The caldera on Fernandina experienced the largest basaltic volcano collapse in history, with the 1968 phreatomagmatic eruption . Fernandina has also been the most active volcano since 1790, with recent eruptions in 1991, 1995, 2005, and 2009, and the entire surface has been covered in numerous flows since 4.3  Ka . The western volcanoes have numerous tuff cones . The islands are located in

2032-592: Is at the northern boundary of the Pacific Large Low Shear Velocity Province while the Easter Hotspot is on the southern boundary. The Galápagos Archipelago is characterized by numerous contemporaneous volcanoes, some with plume magma sources, others from the asthenosphere , possibly due to the young and thin oceanic crust . The GSC caused structural weaknesses in this thin lithosphere leading to eruptions forming

2159-457: Is no firm evidence that Polynesians or the indigenous peoples of South America reached the islands before their accidental discovery by Bishop Tomás de Berlanga in 1535. If some visitors did arrive, poor access to fresh water on the islands seems to have limited settlement. The Spanish Empire similarly ignored the islands, although during the Golden Age of Piracy various pirates used

2286-609: Is on the boundary between the humid subtropical climate (Köppen classification Cfa ) and the tropical monsoon climate (Köppen classification Am ). Temperatures are warm to hot all year round due to the warm currents from the North Pacific gyre surrounding the island. Rainfall is less heavy than in most parts of mainland Japan since the island is too far south to be influenced by the Aleutian Low and too far from Asia to receive monsoonal rainfall or orographic precipitation on

2413-531: Is only known in one record and has not been seen since 1915. The Bonin flying fox ( Pteropus pselaphon ), also called the Bonin fruit bat, is endemic to the islands. It is currently listed as endangered , and a survey published by the Ogasawara Office of Education in 1999 estimated their number at around 100. The Bonin sambar ( R. unicolor boninensis) , a subspecies of the sambar deer , was supposedly

2540-668: Is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan . The Bonin Islands consist of three subgroups. Their former names come from a variety of sources, but their Japanese ones generally reflect a family: Although not part of the Bonins ( 小笠原群島 , Ogasawara- guntō ) geographically, the nearby Volcano Islands , Nishinoshima (Rosario Island), Okinotorishima (Parece Vela), and Minamitorishima (Marcus Island) are organized as part of Ogasawara municipality (小笠原村, Ogasawara- mura ). Ogasawara itself

2667-552: Is organized as a subprefecture of Tokyo . In Japanese, the geographical expression for the full range of the municipality is the "Ogasawara Archipelago" ( 小笠原諸島 , Ogasawara- shotō ) which in turn is sometimes calqued back into English as another meaning for "the Bonin Islands". The Bonin Islands are a part of the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc of Pacific islands . A fore arc, they lie above the subduction zone where

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2794-639: Is quite controversial on the islands. On 26 June 2016, the Japanese Minister of Environment Tamayo Marukawa talked about airport construction on the Bonins after the meeting in Tokyo commemorating the fifth anniversary of their registration as World Natural Heritage. At a 27 July 2017 meeting with Ogasawara Village, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced that it was considering opening a regular air route between Tokyo and

2921-600: Is the airport equipped with overnight plane accommodations. Seymour Airport on Baltra was recently renovated (2012–2013) to accommodate larger planes. Nanp%C5%8D Islands The Nanpō Islands ( 南方諸島 , Nanpō Shotō ) is a collective term for the groups of islands that are located to the south of the Japanese archipelago . They extend from the Izu Peninsula west of Tokyo Bay southward for about 1,200 km (750 mi), to within 500 km (310 mi) of

3048-559: The Australian National University stated that certain Asia–Pacific taxa may have been growing in the Galápagos prior to 1535. This opens a direction for future research which might "constitute a strong line of evidence for accidental or deliberate landfall in the Galápagos by a Polynesian vessel", although the report noted current scholarship finds no evidence that Pacific islands beyond Easter Island "play[ed]

3175-731: The Bonin petrel extends beyond the Bonins themselves to other islands in the North Pacific. There are two restricted-range species of birds on the islands, the Japanese wood pigeon ( Columba janthina ) and the near-threatened Bonin white-eye ( Apalopteron familiare ), formerly known as the Bonin honeyeater. The Japanese wood pigeon was extirpated from the Iwo Island groups in the 1980s. The formerly endemic Bonin pigeon ( C. versicolor ), Bonin thrush ( Zoothera terrestris ) and Bonin grosbeak ( Carpodacus ferreorostris ) are now extinct. A small extinct bat, Sturdee's pipistrelle ,

3302-708: The Enchanted Isles or Islands ( Islas Encantadas ) from sailors' difficulty with the winds and currents around them; as the Ecuador Archipelago ( Archipiélago de Ecuador ) or Archipelago of the Equator ( Archipiélago del Ecuador ) following their settlement by Ecuador in 1832; and as the Colon or Columbus Archipelago ( Archipiélago del Colón ) in 1892 upon the quadricentennial of Columbus 's first voyage . The islands were mapped by

3429-584: The English buccaneer William Ambrosia Cowley in 1684 and by the British captain James Colnett in 1793. The names they chose to honour British kings , nobles , and naval officers of their eras continued to be used for the major islands until recently and are still used for many of the smaller islets. The Spanish names have varied over time, but the current official names have gradually supplanted

3556-497: The Galapagos group for specimens; this included Wreck Bay on Chatham Island (now San Cristóbal Island ) on 4 April and Charles Island (now Floreana Island ) on 8 April. José Valdizán and Manuel Julián Cobos tried a new colonization, beginning the exploitation of a type of lichen found in the islands ( Roccella portentosa ) used as a coloring agent. After the assassination of Valdizán by some of his workers, Cobos brought from

3683-642: The Galápagos triple junction . The archipelago is located on the Nazca plate (a tectonic plate), which is moving east/southeast, diving under the South American plate at a rate of about 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) per year. It is also atop the Galápagos hotspot , a place where the Earth's crust is being melted from below by a mantle plume , creating volcanoes. The first islands formed here at least 8 million and possibly up to 90 million years ago. While

3810-622: The Kingdom of Hawaii . They found the climate suitable for farming and the raising of livestock. Rum was made from cane sugar, and bordellos were opened, sometimes staffed by women kidnapped from other island chains. Whalers and other ships that could not find another friendly port in Japan often visited the Bonins for provision and recreation. Two years later, the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland published

3937-665: The Mariana Islands . The Nanpō Islands are all administered by Tokyo Metropolis . The Hydrographic and Oceanographic Department of the Japan Coast Guard defines the Nanpō Shotō as follows: The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan , a government agency that is responsible for standardization of place names, does not use the term Nanpō Shotō, although it has agreed with the Japan Coast Guard over

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4064-538: The Ogasawara Maru ( おがさわら丸 ), an 11,035- ton 150-meter (490 ft) long vessel with 170 private rooms and a total capacity of 894 passengers. With a top speed of 24.7 knots (45.7 km/h; 28.4 mph), it makes the trip from Takeshiba Pier in Tokyo in about 24 hours in good weather. The number of monthly voyages varies, having fallen during the coronavirus pandemic . Previously, there had been plans for

4191-681: The Pacific Plate slides beneath the Philippine Sea Plate . This began during the Eocene , simultaneously producing the deep Bonin Trench to the east about 50 million years ago and prolonged volcanic activity that created the islands on the west around 48 million years ago. The Bonins are mostly composed of an andesitic volcanic rock called boninite , rich in magnesium oxide , chromium , and silicon dioxide . They may represent

4318-559: The San Juan sighted Haha-jima , which he charted as Forfana . The islands were uninhabited at that time. Japanese discovery of the islands occurred in Kanbun 10 (1670) and was followed by a shogunate expedition in Enpō 3 (1675). The islands were then referred to as Bunin jima ( 無人島 , Buninjima ) , literally "the uninhabited islands ". Shimaya Ichizaemon, the explorer at the order of

4445-463: The U.S. Navy occupied the island, bulldozing existing Japanese homes and restricting resettlement until full control of the Bonins was returned to Japan in 1968. Ethnically, the island is now majority Japanese but remains unusually diverse, which is reflected in the local Creole language known as Bonin English . Improved transportation has made agriculture more profitable and encouraged tourism, but

4572-537: The Volcano Islands and three remote islands of Nishinoshima , Minamitorishima , and Okinotorishima . These islands are parts of Japan's Nanpō Islands . The islands were also formerly known to Europeans as the Archbishop Islands ( Spanish : Islas del Arzobispo ), probably in honor of Pedro Moya de Contreras , archbishop of Mexico and viceroy of New Spain , who sent an expedition to

4699-427: The cantons of San Cristóbal , Santa Cruz , and Isabela , the three most populated islands in the chain. The Galápagos are famous for their large number of endemic species , which were studied by Charles Darwin in the 1830s and inspired his theory of evolution by means of natural selection . All of these islands are protected as part of Ecuador's Galápagos National Park and Marine Reserve . Thus far, there

4826-554: The characters ( buninshima for mujintō ), and then transcribed the resulting reading incorrectly into French as Bo-nin Sima , which eventually lost its original hyphen . The name Ogasawara ( 小笠原 ) literally means "little hat-shaped field(s)" but is used for the islands in honor of Ogasawara Sadayori ( 小笠原 貞 頼 ), a supposed ancestor of the ronin Ogasawara Sadatō ( 小笠原 貞 任 ) fictitiously credited with

4953-605: The indigenous peoples of South America ever made it to the islands is disputed. Oceanic Pacific islands in the same general area as Galápagos—including Clipperton , Cocos , the Desventuradas , the Juan Fernández Islands , and the Revillagigedos —were all uninhabited when discovered by Europeans, with no evidence to indicate any prehistoric human activity. The easternmost oceanic island in

5080-551: The 1990s and 2000s, violent confrontations between parts of the local population and the Galápagos National Park Service occurred, including capturing and killing giant tortoises and holding staff of the Galápagos National Park Service hostage to obtain higher annual sea cucumber quotas. In May 2023, Credit Suisse said it would buy Ecuador's debt of $ 1.6 billion in a " Debt-for-nature swap ". It will sell 2035 and 2040 bonds for Galapagos conservation at

5207-465: The Bonins using a proposed 1,200 m (3,900 ft) runway that would be built on Chichijima. This would allow it to land propeller aircraft with up to 50 passengers. The Tokyo government said that construction would depend on future assessments of the impact on the natural environment and economic feasibility. Ogasawara Village supported the runway in preference to expanding either the current helicopter or seaplane access. In fiscal 2019, 490 million yen

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5334-549: The British crew, mentioning in passing that the tortoises of the different islands could be easily identified by their different shells. By the end of his voyage, Darwin was beginning to wonder if the distribution of the mockingbirds and the tortoises might "undermine the stability of Species ". Upon his return to England, analysis of the bird specimens he had collected showed that what had appeared to be many different species were actually finches displaying developments unique to

5461-476: The English ones for most of the major islands. Volcanism has been continuous on the Galápagos Islands for at least 20 million years, and perhaps even longer. The mantle plume beneath the east-ward moving Nazca plate (51 km/ myr ) has given rise to a 3-kilometre-thick platform under the island chain and seamounts . Besides the Galápagos Archipelago , other key tectonic features in

5588-479: The Galápagos Archipelago are closer volcano spacing, smaller volcano sizes, and larger calderas . For instance, Isabela Island includes six major volcanoes, Ecuador, Wolf, Darwin, Alcedo, Sierra Negra and Cerro Azul, with most recent eruptions ranging from 1813 to 2008. The neighboring islands of Santiago and Fernandina last erupted in 1906 and 2009, respectively. Overall, the nine active volcanoes in

5715-637: The Galápagos Platform. Fernandina and Isabela in particular are aligned along these weaknesses. Lacking a well-defined rift zone , the islands have a high rate of inflation prior to eruption. Sierra Negra on Isabela Island experienced a 240 cm (94 in) uplift between 1992 and 1998, most recent eruption in 2005, while Fernandina on Fernandina Island indicated an uplift of 90 cm (35 in), most recent eruption in 2009. Alcedo on Isabela Island had an uplift of greater than 90 cm, most recent eruption in 1993. Additional characteristics of

5842-580: The Galápagos as a base for raiding Spanish shipping along the Peruvian coast. The goats and black and brown rats introduced during this period greatly damaged the existing ecosystems of several islands. British sailors were chiefly responsible for exploring and mapping the area. Darwin's voyage on HMS Beagle was part of an extensive British survey of the coasts of South America. Ecuador , which won its independence from Spain in 1822 and left Gran Colombia in 1830, formally occupied and claimed

5969-408: The Galápagos collecting scientific material on geology, entomology , ornithology , botany , zoology , and herpetology . Another expedition from that Academy was done in 1932 (Templeton Crocker Expedition) to collect insects, fish, shells , fossils , birds, and plants. For a long time during the early 1900s and at least through 1929, a cash-strapped Ecuador had reached out for potential buyers of

6096-473: The Galápagos for these purposes on its way to the Offshore Grounds. On Colnett's Charles Island, while most of the crew were hunting tortoises one crewmember, English boatsteerer Thomas Chappel—for reasons still unclear—lit a fire which quickly burned out of control. Some of the tortoise hunters had a narrow escape and had to run a gauntlet of fire to get back to the ship. Soon almost the entire island

6223-498: The Galápagos tortoises to extract their fat. The tortoises could be kept on board ship as a means of providing of fresh protein, as these animals could survive for several months on board without any food or water. The hunting of the tortoises was responsible for greatly diminishing, and in some cases eliminating, certain species. Along with whalers came the fur-seal hunters, who brought the population of this animal close to extinction. The first known permanent human resident on Galápagos

6350-531: The Galápagos, would be of great benefit since the geopolitical situation of Chile was expected to drastically change when the Panama Canal opened. Another benefit would be to widen the security radius of Chile. Chile was alarmed by the United States plans to establish a Guantanamo-like base in the Galápagos Islands since it would mean that Chile's nitrate-rich northern provinces would be within

6477-762: The Japanese "Boninsima" were entirely different islands. On 12 September 1824, American Captain James Coffin in the whaler Transit first visited the southern group of islands ( Coffin Islands ). He revisited the archipelago in 1825, but this time, he arrived at the middle group of islands ( Beechey Group ). In September 1825, the British whaling ship Supply landed in the southern Bailey Group of islands. In 1826, another British whaler, William , arrived at Beechey Island. Whaling ships called regularly for water and turtles before continuing their voyages. In 1827, Captain F. W. Beechey of HMS  Blossom reached

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6604-574: The Nanpō Islands, although a small colony of Europeans and Americans was established at Chichi-jima. Japan began colonizing the islands in 1853, claimed them in 1861, then finally annexed them in 1891 as part of Tokyo Prefecture . By the mid-1930s the islands were closed to foreigners and a small Imperial Japanese Navy base was established at Chichi-jima. 28°00′00″N 141°00′00″E  /  28.0000°N 141.0000°E  / 28.0000; 141.0000 This Tokyo location article

6731-500: The Navy's management of nuclear weapons on Chichijima. In 1956, the residents petitioned for American annexation of the islands but received no response. In 1968, the United States government returned the Bonins to Japanese control. The Ōbeikei could either become Japanese nationals or receive American citizenship and repatriate to the United States. The majority remained in the islands as Japanese citizens. Initially, 600 Japanese relocated to

6858-452: The SDF post at Iwakuni is used during visits by the Tokyo governor and other dignitaries and for any emergency requiring rapid transport back to Honshu . For several decades, there has been talk of building a full airport. Sites on Chichijima and Anijima have both been rejected. Travel time to the mainland would be cut to around two hours, improving tourism and providing emergency services, and

6985-643: The South Pacific Ocean, however. The Galápagos Archipelago consists of 7,880 km (3,040 sq mi) of land spread over 45,000 km (17,000 sq mi) of ocean. The largest of the islands, Isabela, measures 2,250 square miles (5,800 km ) and makes up close to three-quarters of the total land area of the Galápagos. Volcán Wolf on Isabela is the highest point, with an elevation of 1,707 m (5,600 ft) above sea level . The group consists of 18 main islands, 3 smaller islands, and 107 rocks and islets . The islands are located at

7112-586: The South Pacific that was discovered with a human population was Easter Island , whose Rapa Nui people are known to be Polynesian rather than South American. In 1572, the Spanish chronicler Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa claimed that Topa Inca Yupanqui , the second Sapa Inca of the Inca Empire , had visited the archipelago. There is, however, little evidence for this and many experts consider it

7239-502: The Spanish arrived in the 16th century. A 2016 reanalysis of Heyerdahl and Skjølsvold's archaeological sites rejected their conclusions. They found that—at all locations excavated by the 1952 survey—artifacts of Indian and European origin were interspersed without the distinct spatial or stratigraphic arrangement that would be expected from independent sequential deposition. (Heyerdahl and Skjølsvold had noted this in their original report while ignoring its implications.) Radiocarbon dates from

7366-572: The aforementioned locations established a geographic triangle of protection in charge of patrolling the Pacific for enemy submarines, and also provided protection for the Panama Canal . After the war, the facilities were given to the government of Ecuador. Today, the island continues as an official Ecuadorian military base. The foundations and other remains of the US base can still be seen as one crosses

7493-421: The archipelago have erupted 24 times between 1961 and 2011. The shape of these volcanoes is tall and rounded as opposed to wide and smooth in the Hawaiian Islands. The Galápagos's shape is due to the pattern of radial and circumferential fissure , radial on the flanks, but circumferential near the caldera summits. It is the circumferential fissures which give rise to stacks of short lava flows . The volcanoes at

7620-405: The area in the late 16th century. At the end of the 20th century, prehistoric tools and carved stones were discovered on North Iwo Jima and Chichijima , establishing that the islands were previously home to at least some members of an unknown Micronesian people . The first recorded visit by Europeans to the islands happened on 2 October 1543, when the Spanish explorer Bernardo de la Torre on

7747-404: The chain are located in both the northern and southern hemispheres, with Volcán Wolf and Volcán Ecuador on Isla Isabela being directly on the equator. Española Island , the southernmost islet of the archipelago, and Darwin Island , the northernmost one, are spread out over a distance of 220 km (137 mi). The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) considers them wholly within

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7874-411: The continent to San Cristóbal Island a group of more than a hundred workers, and tried his luck at planting sugar cane. He ruled his plantation with an iron hand, which led to his assassination in 1904. In 1897, Antonio Gil began another plantation on Isabela Island. Over the course of a whole year, from September 1904, an expedition of the Academy of Sciences of California, led by Rollo Beck , stayed in

8001-418: The crew observed the geology, plants, and wildlife on Floreana, Isabela, and Santiago before continuing on their round-the-world expedition on 20 October. The young naturalist Charles Darwin , primarily a geologist at the time, was struck by the many volcanic features they saw, later referring to the archipelago as "that land of craters". His study of several volcanic formations over the five weeks he stayed in

8128-404: The development required for an airport remains a contentious local issue. The name Bonin comes from an 1817 article in the French Journal des Savans by Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat in which—among various other misunderstandings of his source material —he misread a description of the islands as uninhabited ( 無人嶋 , " desert island [s]") for their actual name, used the wrong reading of

8255-416: The discovery of the chain. Within Japanese , the Bonins proper are known as the "Ogasawara Islands" or "Group" ( 小笠原 群島 , Ogasawara-guntō ) while the "Ogasawara Islands" or "Archipelago" ( 小笠原 諸島 , Ogasawara-shotō ) is a wider term including the other islands of the Ogasawara Municipality ( 小笠原 村 , Ogasawara-mura ) and its coterminous Ogasawara Subprefecture ( 小笠原 支庁 , Ogasawara-shichō )—namely,

8382-399: The eastern Pacific Ocean, 973 km (605 mi) off the west coast of South America. The majority of islands are also more broadly part of the South Pacific. The closest land mass is that of mainland Ecuador , the country to which they belong, 926 km (500 nmi) to the east. The islands are found at the coordinates 1°40'N–1°36'S, 89°16'–92°01'W. Straddling the equator, islands in

8509-479: The entire chain lies on South Iwo Jima , at 916 meters (3,005 ft). In November 2013, a new volcanic island formed offshore from Nishinoshima and eventually merged with it. The islands are fringed with healthy coral reefs and have many small beaches. The climate of the Bonin Islands ranges from a humid subtropical climate ( Köppen climate classification Cfa ) to tropical monsoon climate ( Köppen climate classification Am ). The climate of Chichijima

8636-426: The equatorward side of the Siberian High . The wettest months are May and September, while the driest are January and February. The easternmost island, Minamitorishima or Marcus Island, has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen classification Aw ) with warm to hot temperatures throughout the year. The wettest months are July and August, while the driest are February and March. Flora has evolved differently on each of

8763-494: The era who might provide future patronage. In 1793, during the early French Revolutionary Wars , the British captain James Colnett described the flora and fauna of Galápagos and suggested the islands could be used as a base for whalers operating in the Pacific. Colnett improved upon Cowley's chart, coining additional names although accidentally transferring Cowley's Charles Island from Española to Floreana. Whalers and maritime fur traders killed and captured thousands of

8890-410: The especially wet year of 1969 shows the variation of precipitation in different places of Santa Cruz Island : Most of the Galápagos is covered in semi-desert vegetation, including shrublands, grasslands, and dry forest. A few of the islands have high-elevation areas with cooler temperatures and higher rainfall, which are home to humid-climate forests and shrublands, and montane grasslands ( pampas ) at

9017-424: The expedition could not find the wanted islands after searching the positions where they were charted in contemporary references. Japanese maps at the time seem to have been rather inaccurate, to the point that some contemporaries considered them to have been deliberately misleading to discourage colonization attempts by foreign nations. Frederick William Beechey used the Spanish name as late as 1831, believing that

9144-434: The exposed parts of an ophiolite that has not yet been emplaced on oceanic crust. Although the area is currently dormant, most of the islands still have steep shorelines, often with sea cliffs ranging from 50 to 100 meters (160 to 330 ft) high. The Volcano Islands are much younger and still geologically active. Iwo Jima is a dormant volcano characterized by rapid uplift and several hot springs . The highest point in

9271-499: The first time since 2005. Lava flows made their way to the coastline, prompting the evacuation of about fifty nearby residents and restricting tourist access. The 18 main islands (each having a land area at least 1 km ) of the archipelago (with their English names) shown alphabetically: Mosquera is also home to one of the largest colonies of sea lions in the Galapagos, and there have been occasional orca whale sightings around

9398-431: The growing importance of ecotourism to the local economy , the airport modernized in the 2010s, using recycled materials for any expansion and shifting entirely to renewable energy sources to handle its roughly 300,000 visitors each year. The Galápagos or Galapagos Islands are named for their giant tortoises , which were more plentiful at the time of their discovery. The Spanish word galápago derives from

9525-432: The highest elevations. There are about 500 species of native vascular plants on the islands, including 90 species of ferns. About 180 vascular plant species are endemic. The islands are well known for their distinctive endemic species, including giant tortoises , finches , flightless cormorants , Galápagos lava lizards and marine iguanas , which evolved to adapt to islands' environments. Whether Polynesians or

9652-546: The island chain and claimed them as a British possession. A copper plate was removed from Blossom ' s hull and left on a beach as a marker of the claim: "HBM Ship Blossom Capt F. W. Beechey took possession of this Group of Islands in the Name of and on the behalf of His Britannic Majesty George the IV on the 14th June 1827." He also named the island of Chichijima "Peel" after then British Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel . Beechey

9779-503: The island's highlands. The initial colonists who joined him were Ecuadorian soldiers—chiefly political prisoners —whose death sentences were commuted in exchange for their agreement to permanently settle the islands with their families. They were joined in October by additional artisans and farmers, bringing the population to about 120, at which point Villamil was formally made the area's first governor. Villamil's lieutenant governor

9906-430: The island. In 1946, a penal colony was established on Isabela Island, but it was suspended in 1959. Galápagos National Park was established in 1959, with tourism starting to expand in the 1960s, imposing several restrictions upon the human population already living on the island. However, opportunities in the tourism, fishing, and farming industries attracted a mass of poor fishermen and farmers from mainland Ecuador. In

10033-453: The islands in 1684 while sailing on John Cook 's Batchelor's or Bachelor's Delight and John Eaton 's Nicholas as they raided Peruvian shipping. One cargo captured that year was 7–8 tuns of quince marmalade , whose remains scattered pottery around the islands. Publishing the first thorough chart of the islands, Cowley coined the English names for 16 of the islands, chiefly honoring English royalty, nobles, and Jamaican officials of

10160-598: The islands in 1853 and bought a property at Port Lloyd from Savory for $ 50. The US " Colony of Peel Island " (Chichijima) was created, and Savory was appointed governor. In January 1862 ( Bunkyū 1), the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan claimed the islands in a short-lived colonial enterprise. The shogunal steamboat Kanrin Maru was dispatched to the islands with a crew of cartographers, physicians, and prominent bureaucrats. The islands were officially renamed Ogasawara, referring to

10287-430: The islands in 1893 and published an account of his sojourn. Lionel Cholmondeley compiled a history of the islands over several years, publishing it in 1915. In 1917, 60–70 island people claimed ancestry among the 19th-century English-speaking settlers; however, in 1941, no Bonin people would acknowledge descent from these early colonists. The current residents include some who claim to be related to Nathaniel Savory. In

10414-432: The islands led to several important geological discoveries, including the first correct explanation for how volcanic tuff is formed. Darwin noticed the mockingbirds differed between islands, though he thought the birds now known as Darwin's finches were unrelated to each other and did not bother labelling them by island. Acting as governor of the islands while Villamil was on the mainland, Nicholas Lawson met Darwin and

10541-522: The islands on 12 February 1832 while the voyage was ongoing. José de Villamil , the founder of the Ecuadorian Navy , led the push to colonize and settle the islands, gradually supplanting the English names of the major islands with Spanish ones. The United States built the islands' first airport as a base to protect the western approaches of the Panama Canal in the 1930s. After World War II , its facilities were transferred to Ecuador. With

10668-536: The islands their home. In 1972 a census in the archipelago recorded a population of 3,488. By the 1980s, this number had risen to more than 15,000 people, and in 2010 there were 25,124 people in the Galápagos. 2021 projected population was 40,685. Five of the islands are inhabited: Baltra , Floreana , Isabela , San Cristóbal , and Santa Cruz . Options for air travel to the Galápagos are limited to two islands: San Cristobal ( San Cristóbal Airport ) and Baltra ( Seymour Airport ). Private aircraft must use Baltra as it

10795-607: The islands to alleviate financial troubles at home. The US had repeatedly expressed its interest in buying the islands for military use as they were positioned strategically guarding the Panama Canal . Besides the United States, Japan , Germany and Chile also expressed interest in establishing bases in the islands at the turn of the century. Chile had previously acquired the Straits of Magellan and Easter Island for strategic reasons and lieutenant Gregorio Santa Cruz argued in 1903 that possessing an island in equatorial waters, like

10922-513: The islands were controlled by the United States Navy for the next 23 years, which the Westerners referred to as "Navy Time." All residents except those descended from the original settlers (the Ōbeikei Islanders) and/or related to them by marriage were expelled, while pre-war inhabitants of White American or European , Micronesian or Polynesian ancestry were allowed to return. Vacant properties of exiled Japanese were bulldozed as part of

11049-498: The islands were largely ignored by the Spanish , Dutch , and isolationist Japanese until finally being claimed by a passing British captain in 1827. American , European , and Hawaiian colonists arrived from the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1830. Subsequently, Meiji Japan successfully colonized and reclaimed the islands in 1875, but the original multicultural community continued up to World War II , when most islanders were forcibly relocated to Honshu . Following Japan's defeat ,

11176-628: The islands were put under the direct control of the Home Ministry . Further, foreign settlements were banned, and the government assisted settlers who wished to relocate from mainland Japan. The islands' forests were also reduced to use the land for sugar cane production. Colonists largely segregated themselves in two different villages, one for the Americans and the other for the Japanese. Islanders of European and US ancestry were eventually granted Japanese nationality in 1882. Jack London visited

11303-526: The islands' remoteness and unusually mixed local culture. Refrigeration has also allowed for the greater exportation of fruits and vegetables. Coffee bushes have also recently been introduced successfully. Some government agencies are also involved with the islands. A 25-metre-diameter (82 ft) radio telescope is located in Chichijima, one of the stations of the very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA) project. It

11430-460: The islands' two main seasons. The archipelago is mainly characterized by a mixture of a tropical savanna climate and a semi-arid climate , transitioning to a tropical rainforest climate in the northwest. During the rainy season known as the garúa from June to November, the temperature near the sea is around 22 °C (72 °F), a steady cool wind blows from south and southeast, frequent drizzles ( garúas ) for days, and dense fog conceals

11557-478: The islands, growing to about 2,000 by the end of the 20th century. The Bonins were named a natural World Heritage Site on 24 June 2011. Historically, the Bonin Islands consisted of subsistence farming with some exploitation of timber and grazing land for export to the mainland. With improved transportation, it has developed as a tourist destination, particularly for Japanese interested in scuba diving and ecotourism . Foreign tourists are also sometimes drawn by

11684-829: The islands, seeking a simpler life. Descendants of the Norwegian Kastdalen family and the German Angermeyer still live on the islands. During World War II, Ecuador authorized the United States to establish a naval base in Baltra Island, and radar stations in other strategic locations. Baltra was established as a United States Army Air Force base. Baltra was given the name of "Beta Base" along with "Alpha Base" in Nicaragua and "Gamma Base" in Salinas (continental Ecuador). The Crews stationed at Baltra and

11811-410: The islands. During the warm season from December to May, the average sea and air temperatures rise to around 25 °C (77 °F), there is no wind at all, and the sun shines apart from sporadic strong downpours. Weather also changes as altitude increases on the larger islands. Temperature decreases gradually with altitude, while precipitation increases due to the condensation of moisture from clouds on

11938-517: The islands. The Bonin Islands are sometimes referred to as the Galápagos of the Orient. They form a distinct subtropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion , the Ogasawara subtropical moist forests . The ecoregion has a high degree of biodiversity and endemism . The islands are home to about 500 plant species, of which 43% are endemic. The forests are of three main types: These islands are home to

12065-615: The islands. The voyage became crucial in Darwin's development of his theory of evolution of species by natural selection , presented in the 1859 On the Origin of Species . The Englishman William Gurney became mayor of a new settlement on Chatham Island in 1844. In April 1888 USS  Albatross , a Navy-crewed research vessel assigned to the United States Fish Commission , briefly touched eight islands in

12192-552: The islet. As is usual in the archipelago, the islet is shared by many seabirds, marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies and Sally Lightfoot crabs. Although the islands are located on the equator, the Humboldt Current brings cold water to them, causing frequent drizzles during most of the year. The weather is regularly influenced by the El Niño events, which occur every 3 to 7 years and bring warmer sea surface temperatures ,

12319-684: The largely European expatriate residents at the time, which prompted the movies The Empress of Floreana and The Galápagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden . Ecuadorian laws provided all colonists with the possibility of receiving twenty hectares each of free land, the right to maintain their citizenship, freedom from taxation for the first ten years in Galápagos, and the right to hunt and fish freely on all uninhabited islands where they might settle. The first European colonists to arrive were Norwegians who settled briefly on Floreana, before moving on to San Cristobal and Santa Cruz. A few years later, other colonists from Europe, America and Ecuador started arriving on

12446-458: The later stage of World War II , most inhabitants were forcibly evacuated to the mainland. There was a Japanese military base on Chichijima run by a Major Sueo Matoba ( 的場 末男 , Matoba Sueo ) , who was known for engaging in cannibalism and other heinous acts on prisoners of war. The torpedo bomber of later American President George H. W. Bush crashed in the ocean near Chichijima. He ended up getting rescued by USS Finback and becoming

12573-473: The legendary Japanese discoverer from the late 16th century. This tentative colonization, however, did not last for long. In the summer of 1863, under foreign pressure, the shogunate ordered the evacuation of the islands. In 1875, the Japanese Meiji government reclaimed the islands. The Japanese names of each island were resolved, and 38 settlers from Hachijojima were sent the following year. In 1876,

12700-675: The long sought but legendary islands of Rica de Oro ("Rich in Gold"), Rica de Plata ("Rich in Silver"), and the Islas del Armenio ("Islands of the Armenian") . After several years of planning and frustrated initial attempts, the expedition finally set sail on 12 July 1587, commanded by Pedro de Unamuno . Even if it did revisit the Daitō Islands , already charted by Bernardo de la Torre in 1543,

12827-439: The maps of Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius around 1570. The first English captain to visit the Galápagos Islands was Richard Hawkins in 1593. Until the early 19th century, the archipelago was often used as a hideout by (mostly English) pirates who attacked Spanish treasure fleets carrying gold, silver, and supplies from Peru to Panama and Spain . The English pirate William Ambrosia Cowley thoroughly mapped

12954-517: The names and extents of the subgroups of the Nanpō Shotō. The Japanese claim to have discovered the islands in 1593; however, many of the islands were known by the Spanish sailors that went from Philippines to New Spain since Bernardo de la Torre 's voyage in 1543, while the British claimed the islands in 1827. However, archeological evidence has since revealed that some of the islands were prehistorically inhabited by members of an unknown Micronesian ethnicity . Neither Japan nor Britain developed

13081-426: The national, regional, and local governments have all supported the idea in theory. Projects have lagged, however, due to concerns about their economic feasibility and concerns that the proposed sites are homes to numerous valuable, rare, or endangered plant species. Some locals have greatly desired an airport, while a desire to keep the islands' natural beauty untouched has prompted others to work to block one. The issue

13208-574: The native snails are now endangered or extinct because of introduced species and habitat loss. The giant squid ( Architeuthis dux ) was photographed off the Bonins for the first time in the wild on 30 September 2004. It was filmed alive there in December 2006. The main port is Futami on Chichijima . Since 2016, the main line connecting the islands to the mainland is the Ogasawara Shipping Company ( 小笠原海運株式会社 ). It operates

13335-428: The new whaling ground and the Galápagos Islands became a frequent stop for the whalers both before and after visiting what came to be known as the Offshore Grounds. This led to the establishment in the Galápagos Islands of a kind of unofficial "post office" where whaleships stopped to pick up and drop off letters as well as for provisioning and repairing. In October 1820, the whaleship Essex out of Nantucket stopped at

13462-560: The northernmost outliers of the palm genus Clinostigma . C. savoryianum is endemic and has been planted in Mediterranean climates with success. Other unique species include Metrosideros boninensis , a plant related to similar species growing in Fiji and New Caledonia . Due to its isolation and recent colonization, the Bonin Islands contain several endemic animal species, most of them recently extinct . The range of

13589-444: The older islands have disappeared below the sea as they moved away from the mantle plume, the youngest islands, Isabela and Fernandina , are still being formed. In April 2009, lava from the volcanic island Fernandina started flowing both towards the island's shoreline and into the center caldera. In late June 2018, Sierra Negra, one of five volcanoes on Isabela and one of the most active in the Galapagos archipelago, began erupting for

13716-482: The only one to survive ultimately. Eight other airmen downed near the islands were later executed and cannibalized by the Japanese soldiers. After the war, Lieutenant General Tachibana , Major Matoba, and Captain Yoshii) were found guilty and hanged. The Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945, one of the fiercest battles of World War II, was fought on a garrison island in this region of the Pacific. Following Japan's surrender ,

13843-461: The precipitation over Charles Darwin Station on the southern coast of Santa Cruz was 249.0 mm (9.80 in), while on nearby Baltra Island the precipitation during the same month was only 137.6 mm (5.42 in). This is because Baltra is located behind Santa Cruz when the prevailing winds are southerly, causing more moisture to fall on the Santa Cruz highlands. The following table for

13970-544: The push to colonize and settle the islands before Ecuador's neighbors or the European empires could occupy them. He formed the Galapagos Settlement Company in mid-1831 and, with President Juan José Flores 's support, sent Col. Ignacio Hernández with a dozen craftsmen to begin the settlement on Charles Island —renamed "Floriana" in the president's honour—early the next year. Hernández conducted

14097-408: The range of United States Navy . Ecuador's staunch resistance to a US purchase or bases in the islands can be credited to Chilean diplomacy, which in turn was informally backed on this issue by Great Britain and Germany . In the 1920s and 1930s, a small wave of European settlers arrived in the islands. There occurred a series of unsolved disappearances on the island of Floreana in the 1930s among

14224-795: The region include the Northern Galápagos volcanic province between the archipelago and the Galápagos Spreading Center (GSC) 200 km (120 mi) to the north at the boundary of the Nazca plate and the Cocos plate . This spreading center truncates into the East Pacific Rise on the west and is bounded by the Cocos Ridge and Carnegie Ridge in the east. Furthermore, the Galápagos Hotspot

14351-407: The shogunate, inventoried several species of trees and birds, but after his expedition, the shogunate abandoned any plans to develop the remote islands. In 1727, Ogasawara Sadatō ( 小笠原 貞任 , Ogasawara Sadatō ) , a rōnin , claimed that the islands were discovered by his ancestor Ogasawara Sadayori ( 小笠原 貞頼 , Ogasawara Sadayori ) , in 1593, ( Tensho 20). Toyotomi Hideyoshi granted

14478-464: The sites placed them in the post-Spanish era and preliminary paleoenvironmental analysis showed no disturbance older than 500 years before present , suggesting no evidence from the survey that the islands were visited prior to their Spanish discovery in 1535. The authors suggested that native artifacts found by Heyerdahl and Skjølsvold had probably been brought as mementos or souvenirs at the time of Spanish occupation. A 2008 report by archeologists from

14605-536: The six to survive the journey. In 1818, the Nantucket whaleship Globe under Captain George Washington Gardner discovered a "mother lode" of sperm whales some thousand miles west of the South American coast approximately at the equator. He returned to Nantucket in 1820 with more than 2,000 barrels of sperm whale oil and the news of his discovery. This led to an influx of whaleships to exploit

14732-441: The slopes. This pattern of generally wet highlands and drier lowlands affects the plant life on the larger islands. The vegetation in the highlands tends to be green and lush, with tropical woodland in places. The lowland areas tend to have arid and semi-arid vegetation, with many thorny shrubs and cacti and areas of barren volcanic rock. Some islands also fall within the rain shadow of others during some seasons. During March 1969,

14859-969: The stress from the 3rd syllable to the 2nd.) It is usually read / ɡ ə ˈ l æ p ə ɡ ə s / in British English and / ɡ ə ˈ l ɑː p ə ɡ ə s / in American English . The name is first attested as the Spanish/Latin hybrid Insulae de los Galopegos ("Islands of the Turtles") on the map of the Americas in Abraham Ortelius 's Theater of the Lands of the World ( Theatrum Orbis Terrarum ), first published in 1570. The islands were also previously known as

14986-548: The territory as a fief. However, an investigation of the claim not only found it to be a fraud but also doubtful of the very existence of Sadayori; as a punishment, Sadato was exiled by the shogunate (1735). The first published description of the islands in the West was brought to Europe by Isaac Titsingh in 1796. His small library of Japanese books included Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu ( 三国通覧図説 , An Illustrated Description of Three Countries ) by Hayashi Shihei . This book, which

15113-551: The west end of the archipelago are in general, taller, younger, have well developed calderas, and are mostly composed of tholeiitic basalt , while those on the east are shorter, older, lack calderas, and have a more diverse composition. The ages of the islands, from west to east are 0.05  Ma for Fernandina, 0.65 Ma for Isabela, 1.10 Ma for Santiago, 1.7 Ma for Santa Cruz, 2.90 Ma for Santa Fe, and 3.2 Ma for San Cristobal. The calderas on Sierra Negra and Alcedo have active fault systems . The Sierra Negra fault

15240-471: The winter of 1920–1921, Russian Futurist painter David Burliuk lived in the Bonin Islands and painted several landscapes of the islands. The islanders were relegated to an insignificant status until the early Shōwa period . After Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor , English was banned on the Bonins, and Americans had to take on Japanese names. As fighting crept closer to Japan during

15367-518: Was Patrick Watkins , an Irish sailor who was marooned on the Floreana from 1807 to 1809. According to later accounts, Watkins managed to survive by hunting, growing vegetables and trading with visiting whalers before stealing a longboat from a whaling ship, impressing five of its crew as his "slaves", and navigating to Guayaquil on the Ecuadorian mainland. Watkins was the only one of

15494-915: Was also surprised to find two men living on the islands. They remained on the islands after the William left the year before in 1826. The men were Wittrein and Petersen. In 1830, with the help of the British Consul to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), Richard Charlton, Richard Millichamp, and Matteo Mazzaro sailed to the islands. The first permanent colony was made up of Nathaniel Savory of Bradford, Massachusetts , America, Richard Millichamp of Devon , England; Matteo Mazzaro of Ragusa/ Dubrovnik , Austrian Empire (now in Croatia ); Alden B. Chapin and Nathaniel Savory of Boston ; Carl Johnsen of Copenhagen ; as well as seven unnamed men and 13 women from

15621-473: Was becalmed in the Doldrums . They found the islands they visited uninhabited and so arid and barren that two men and ten horses died for lack of fresh water and the rest were forced to subsist on cactus pads . The ship left them unclaimed and unsettled. Berlanga, however, wrote a brief account of the islands, their condition, and their main wildlife for Charles V . The Galápagos Islands first appeared on

15748-418: Was in flames. Crewmembers reported that after a day of sailing away they could still see the flames against the horizon. One crewmember who returned to the Galápagos several years afterward described the entire island as still a blackened wasteland. Ecuador won its independence from Spain in 1822 and seceded from Gran Colombia in 1830. Gen. José de Villamil , the founder of the Ecuadorian Navy , led

15875-614: Was included in the Japanese budget for a feasibility study and a survey on Chichijima to determine the best location to construct the runway. In August 2020, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government held a council during which it affirmed its desire to open an airport. Still, it claimed it would not occur until 2030 at the earliest. To address environmental concerns, they further proposed shortening the runway to about 500 meters (1,600 ft) and using tiltrotor aircraft to compensate. Gal%C3%A1pagos Islands This

16002-535: Was published in Japan in 1785, briefly described the Ogasawara Islands . These groups were collectively called the Archbishop Islands in Spanish sources of the 18th–19th century, most likely due to an expedition organized by Pedro Moya de Contreras , archbishop of Mexico and viceroy of New Spain , to explore the northern Pacific and the islands of Japan. Its main objective was to find

16129-582: Was the Norwegian -born American and Chilean sailor and shipwright Nicholas Oliver Lawson . Haven of Peace was originally successful and peaceful but, after being named a penal colony in March 1833, violence and costs began to rise. Villamil was faced with bankruptcy by 1837 and resigned his post, founding a colony of 21 on Indefatigable Island —renamed Bolivia—and leaving Lawson as its mayor. Gen. Villamil's successors—incompetent, strict, or both—prompted

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