Adamstown is the

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

of, and the only settlement on, the

Pitcairn Islands The Pitcairn Islands (; Pitkern: '), officially the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, is a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean that form the sole British Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean. The four isl ...

, the only

British Overseas Territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remna ...

that is located in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. Adamstown has a population of 40, which is the entire population of the Pitcairn Islands. All the other islands in the group are uninhabited. Adamstown is where most residents live, while they grow food in other areas of the island.www.lareau.org/pitc.html
Adamstown is the second smallest capital in the world by population. It has access to

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

satellite Internet Satellite Internet access is Internet access provided through communication satellites. Modern consumer grade satellite Internet service is typically provided to individual users through geostationary satellites that can offer relatively high d ...

, and a

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

; however, the main means of communication remains

ham radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...

. The "Hill of Difficulty" connects the island's jetty to the town.

History

The

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

of the

begins with the settlement of the islands by

Polynesians Polynesians form an ethnolinguistic group of closely related people who are native to Polynesia (islands in the Polynesian Triangle), an expansive region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Sou ...

in the 11th century. The Polynesians established a culture that flourished for four centuries and then vanished. Pitcairn was settled again in 1790 by a group of

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

mutineers on HMS ''Bounty'' and

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...

ans. Adamstown is named for the last surviving mutineer,

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

Geography

The settlement is located on the central-north side of the island of Pitcairn, facing the

and close to the

Bounty Bay Bounty Bay is an embayment of the Pacific Ocean into Pitcairn Island. It is named after the ''Bounty'', a British naval vessel whose eighteenth-century mutiny was immortalized in the novel ''Mutiny on the Bounty'', and the numerous subsequent ...

, the only seaport of the island.

Climate

Adamstown has a

tropical rainforest climate A tropical rainforest climate, humid tropical climate or equatorial climate is a tropical climate sub-type usually found within 10 to 15 degrees latitude of the equator. There are some other areas at higher latitudes, such as the coast of southea ...

(''Af'') under the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

system. The hamlet features a wet, very warm climate averaging of rain a year. The wettest month is December and temperatures do not vary significantly throughout the year.

Personalities

Ned Young The complement of , the Royal Navy ship on which a historic mutiny occurred in the south Pacific on 28 April 1789, comprised 46 men on its departure from England in December 1787 and 44 at the time of the mutiny, including her commander Lieute ...

(1762–1800) *

Fletcher Christian Fletcher Christian (25 September 1764 – 20 September 1793) was master's mate on board HMS ''Bounty'' during Lieutenant William Bligh's voyage to Tahiti during 1787–1789 for breadfruit plants. In the mutiny on the ''Bounty'', Christian sei ...

(1764–1793) *

(1768–1829) * Joshua Hill (1773–1844?) * Thursday October Christian (1790–1831) *

Steve Christian Steven Raymond Christian (born 26 June 1951, Pitcairn Island) is a politician, convicted sex offender and child rapist from the Pitcairn Islands. He was mayor of the islands from 1999 until 2004, when he was removed from office after being fo ...

(b. 1951) * Brenda Christian (b. 1953) *

Meralda Warren Meralda Elva Junior Warren (born 28 June 1959) is an artist and poet of the Pitcairn Islands, a remote British Overseas Territory in the South Pacific. She works in both English and Pitkern, the island's distinctive creole language. Her book, ...

(b. 1959)

Notes and references

External links

* {{Authority control Capitals in Oceania Geography of the Pitcairn Islands Populated places established in 1790 Capitals of British Overseas Territories Populated places in Oceania 1790 establishments in the Pitcairn Islands