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Saint Helena

Saint Helena

Saint Helena is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km (1,165 miles) west of mainland Africa, with Angola and Namibia being the closest nations, geographically. The island is located around 1,950 km (1,210 mi) west of the coast of southwestern South Africa, and 4,000 km (2,500 mi) east of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Saint Helena measures about 16 by 8 km (10 by 5 mi) and has a population of 4,439 per the 2021 census.[2] It was named after Helena, mother of Constantine I. It is one of the most remote major islands in the world and was uninhabited when discovered by the Portuguese enroute to the Indian subcontinent in 1502. For about four centuries, the island was an important stopover for ships from Europe to Asia and back, while sailing around the African continent, until the opening of the Suez Canal. Saint Helena is the United Kingdom’s second-oldest overseas territory after Bermuda.

Saint Helena is known for being the site of Napoleon’s second exile, following his final defeat in 1815.

Source: Wikipedia (under GNU Free Documentation License)

Categories
Tanzania

Zanzibar IV

Zanzibar (pronounced /ˈzænzɨbɑr/) is a semi-autonomous part of the United Republic of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, 25–50 kilometres (16–31 mi) off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, informally referred to as Zanzibar), and Pemba. Zanzibar was once a separate state with a long trading history within the Arab world; it united with Tanganyika to form Tanzania in 1964 and still enjoys a high degree of autonomy within the union. The capital of Zanzibar, located on the island of Unguja, is Zanzibar City, and its historic center, known as Stone Town, is a World Heritage Site.

Zanzibar’s main industries are spices, raffia, and tourism. In particular, the islands produce cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and pepper. For this reason, the islands, together with Tanzania’s Mafia Island, are sometimes called the Spice Islands (a term also associated with the Maluku Islands in Indonesia). Zanzibar’s ecology is of note for being the home of the endemic Zanzibar Red Colobus and the (possibly extinct) Zanzibar Leopard.

Source: Wikipedia (under GNU Free Documentation License)

Categories
Lesser Antilles

Anguilla

Anguilla (/æŋˈɡwɪlə/ ang-GWIL-ə) is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin. The territory consists of the main island of Anguilla, approximately 16 miles (26 kilometres) long by 3 miles (5 km) wide at its widest point, together with a number of much smaller islands and cays with no permanent population. The territory’s capital is The Valley. The total land area of the territory is 35 square miles (91 km2), with a population of approximately 15,753 (2021).

Anguilla was first settled by Indigenous Amerindian peoples who migrated from South America. The earliest Native American artefacts found on Anguilla have been dated to around 1300 BC; remains of settlements date from AD 600. There are two known petroglyph sites in Anguilla: Big Spring and Fountain Cavern. The rock ledges of Big Spring contain over 100 petroglyphs (dating back to AD 600–1200), the majority consisting of three indentations that form faces.

Precisely when Anguilla was first seen by Europeans is uncertain: some sources claim that Columbus sighted the island during his second voyage in 1493, while others state that the first European explorer was the French Huguenot nobleman and merchant René Goulaine de Laudonnière in 1564. The Dutch West India Company established a fort on the island in 1631. However, the Company later withdrew after its fort was destroyed by the Spanish in 1633.

Source: Wikipedia (under GNU Free Documentation License)

Categories
Lesser Antilles

Tortola

Tortola (/tɔːrˈtoʊlə/) is the largest and most populated island of the British Virgin Islands, a group of islands that form part of the archipelago of the Virgin Islands. It has a surface area of 55.7 square kilometres (21.5 square miles) with a total population of 23,908, with 9,400 residents in Road Town. Mount Sage is its highest point at 530 metres (1,740 feet) above sea level.

Local tradition recounts that Christopher Columbus named the island Tórtola, meaning “turtle dove” in Spanish. In fact, Columbus named the island Santa Ana. Dutch colonists called it Ter Tholen, after Tholen, a coastal island that is part of the Netherlands. When the British took over, the name evolved to Tortola.

Source: Wikipedia (under GNU Free Documentation License)

Categories
Lesser Antilles

Saint Martin

Saint Martin (French: Saint-Martin; Dutch: Sint Maarten) is an island in the northeast Caribbean, approximately 300 km (190 mi) east of Puerto Rico. The 87-square-kilometre (34 sq mi) island is divided roughly 60:40 between the French Republic (53 km2 or 20 sq mi) and the Kingdom of the Netherlands (34 km2 or 13 sq mi), but the Dutch part is more populated than the French part. The division dates to 1648. The northern French part comprises the Collectivity of Saint Martin and is an overseas collectivity of the French Republic. The southern Dutch part comprises Sint Maarten and is one of four constituent countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Even though the island is an overseas possession of two European Union member states, only the French part of the island is part of the EU.

It is commonly believed that Christopher Columbus named the island in honour of Saint Martin of Tours when he encountered it on his second voyage of discovery. However, he actually applied the name to the island now called Nevis when he anchored offshore on 11 November 1493, the feast day of Saint Martin. The confusion of numerous poorly charted small islands in the Leeward Islands meant that this name was accidentally transferred to the island now known as Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten.

Source: Wikipedia (under GNU Free Documentation License)

Categories
Florida Islands Solomon Islands

Mboko Nimbeti Island

Categories
Solomon Islands

Hae Island

Categories
Russell Islands Solomon Islands

Mbanika Island

Mbanika or Banika is an island in Solomon Islands; it is located in the Central Province and is the second largest of the Russell Islands Group. The principal settlement is Yandina.

As portrayed in the HBO miniseries, The Pacific, episode 4 (Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika), the American forces used the island—referred to in the show as “Banika”—as a hospital and R&R site, during World War II.

Source: Wikipedia (under GNU Free Documentation License)

Categories
Russell Islands Solomon Islands

Koemurun Island

Categories
Russell Islands Solomon Islands

Leru Island