The Prince of Wales Island, or Muralag, is an

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

of the

Torres Strait Islands The Torres Strait Islands are an archipelago of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait, a waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of , but their tot ...

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

at the tip of

Cape York Peninsula The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...

within the Endeavour Strait of

Torres Strait The Torres Strait (), also known as Zenadh Kes ( Kalaw Lagaw Ya#Phonology 2, �zen̪ad̪ kes, is a strait between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. The island is situated approximately north of

Muttee Heads Mutee Head is a headland about 20 km west of Bamaga, Queensland, Bamaga at the north of Cape York Peninsula in the Shire of Torres, Queensland, Australia. History In 1943 during World War II, the RAAF built a radar station at Mutee Head, ...

which is adjacent to

Bamaga Bamaga ( , ) is an Indigneous town and locality about from the northern tip of Cape York in the north of Queensland, Australia. It is within the Northern Peninsula Area Region. It is one of the northernmost settlements in continental Australi ...

and south of

Thursday Island Thursday Island, colloquially known as TI, or in the Kalaw Lagaw Ya, Kawrareg dialect, Waiben or Waibene, is an island of the Torres Strait Islands, an archipelago of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait. TI is located approximately ...

. It is within the locality of

Prince Of Wales Prince of Wales (, ; ) is a title traditionally given to the male heir apparent to the History of the English monarchy, English, and later, the British throne. The title originated with the Welsh rulers of Kingdom of Gwynedd, Gwynedd who, from ...

within the

Shire of Torres The Shire of Torres is a local government area located in Far North Queensland, Australia, covering large sections of the Torres Strait Islands and the northern tip of Cape York Peninsula north of 11°S latitude. It holds two distinctions—it ...

. In the , Prince Of Wales had a population of 62 people. Most of the land has been returned to the Kaurareg people, who are the traditional residents on the island.

Geography

With an area of , Prince of Wales Island is the largest of the

. Being inhabited only by a few Kaurareg families (population 20 in 2001), it is very sparsely populated. The town in the north of the island is called Muralug (), after the native name of the island. The northeastern corner of the island, Kiwain Point, is only away from Vivien Point of

, the main and most populous of the Torres Strait Islands, separated by Normanby Sound.

History

First recorded sighting by Europeans of Prince of Wales Island was by the Spanish expedition of

Luís Vaez de Torres Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...

on 3 October 1606. The ship ''Sperwer'' was shipwrecked in 1869. In November 1869, the police magistrate at

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

, Frank Jardine, discovered the bodies of the captain and crew of the ''Sperwer'' hanging on trees "horribly mutilated". The removal of the heads and clothing prevented identification of the victims. A massacre of Kaurareg people occurred on Muralag and Wednesday Island in 1869 and punishments continued for years, decimating the population of Kaurareg people. Sometime between 1885 and 1895, there was what was called the Danish Settlement on Prince of Wales Island, "just opposite the Government residency" on Thursday Island. About the same time a pearling station existed on the island, with four boats attached. In 2019, the Torres Shire Council decided to construct a harbour for the island on a site the Kuarareg people claimed to be of vital historical importance. The Kuarareg opposed the plan and obtained a landmark injunction, grounded in native title, barring future projects. The council abandoned its plans.

Demographics

In the , Prince Of Wales had a population of 109 people. In the , Prince Of Wales had a population of 62 people.

Language

The island's native name is ''Muralag''. The indigenous language of the Thursday Island group is Kaiwaligau Ya, also known as Kauraraigau Ya (the name in the form of the dialect of the 1800s) lso recorded as Kaurareg and Kowrareg Kaiwalaig (Kauraraig) means "islander", and Kaiwaligau Ya (Kauraraigau Ya) means "islanders' language". Kaiwaligau Ya is one of the four dialects of Kala Lagaw Ya, spoken throughout Torres Strait except for the Eastern Islands, where

Meriam Mìr Meriam (; also ''Miriam, Meryam, Mer, Mir, Miriam-Mir'', etc. and ''Eastern, Isten, Esten'' and ''Able Able'') or the Eastern Torres Strait language is the language of the people of the small islands of ''Mer'' (Murray Island, Queensland, Murr ...

is spoken. Most Kowrareg now use Brokan (

Torres Strait Creole Torres Strait Creole (), also known as Torres Strait Pidgin, Brokan/Broken, Cape York Creole, Lockhart Creole, Kriol, Papuan, Broken English, Blaikman, Big Thap, Pizin, and Ailan Tok, is an English-based creole language (a variety of Pidgin ...

) for everyday communication, though the dialect still has many good mother-tongue speakers.

Education

There are no schools on the island. The nearest primary and secondary schools are on

References

External links

Page of the Council relating to Prince of Wales Island
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prince Of Wales Island (Queensland) Torres Strait Islands Torres Strait Islands communities Shire of Torres