The Shepherd Islands (coordinates ) are a group of islands lying between the larger islands of Epi and

Éfaté Efate (french: Éfaté) is an island in the Pacific Ocean which is part of the Shefa Province in Vanuatu. It is also known as Île Vate. Geography It is the most populous (approx. 66,000) island in Vanuatu. Efate's land area of makes it Vanua ...

, in the Shefa province of

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...

. The aggregate land area is . They were named by Captain Cook after

Anthony Shepherd Anthony Shepherd (c. 1721-1796) was a British astronomer. He was the Plumian Professor at the University of Cambridge between 1760 and 1796. He published astronomical tables, and was a friend of Captain Cook, who named the Shepherd Islands afte ...

, a British astronomer and friend of Cook. From north to south, the principal islands are: Laika,

Tongoa Tongoa Island is an inhabited island in Shefa Province of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean. Geography Tongoa is the largest island of Shepherd Islands archipelago. The island is heavily vegetated and shows geothermal activity. Tongoa is of recent vol ...

(Kuwaé),

Buninga Buninga Island is an inhabited island in Shefa Province of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean. The island is a part of Shepherd Islands The Shepherd Islands (coordinates ) are a group of islands lying between the larger islands of Epi and Éfaté, in ...

(Mbining),

Ewose Ewose is a small uninhabited island in the Shefa Province of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean. Geography The island of Ewose lies off the south-west coast of Tongoa Island and is a part of Shepherd Islands The Shepherd Islands (coordinates ) are a ...

, Falea,

Tongariki Tongariki Island is an inhabited island in Shefa Province of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean. The island is a part of Shepherd Islands archipelago. Geography Tongariki is a small island of volcanic origin located in the eastern Shepherd Islands, hav ...

(Atong),

Émaé Emae is an island in the Shepherd Islands, Shefa, Vanuatu. Geography Maunga Lasi is the highest peak at 644 m. It forms the northern rim of the (mostly) underwater volcano of Makura, which also covers the nearby islands of Makura and Mataso. It ...

(Mai),

Makura Makura, locally known as Makira, is a small inhabited island in Shefa Province of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean. Makura is a part of the Shepherds Islands archipelago. Geography The estimated terrain elevation above the sea level is some 132 mete ...

(Emwae),

Mataso Mataso is an island in the Shefa of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean. The island is a part of Shepherd Islands archipelago. Geography Mataso Island is located south of Makira Island. It is formed by two hills separated by white sandy beaches known ...

(Matah), and

Monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, his ...

(Étarik). Émaé and Tongoa are the largest islands in the group. The region includes two submarine volcanoes,

Kuwae Kuwae was a landmass that existed in the vicinity of Tongoa and was destroyed by volcanic eruption in fifteenth century, probably through caldera subsidence. The exact location of the caldera is debated. A submarine caldera, now known as Kuwae ca ...

and Makura. The islands are principally in the outlines of the calderas of these volcanoes. The highest of the islands is Émaé, at

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

, Tongariki is also above .

Population and languages

At the 2009 census the population numbered 3634. The Shepherd Islands are quite densely populated. There is little economic activity although fishing is very good. Many people move to Port Vila to find work. Most of the islands are inhabited by

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...

ns like most of Vanuatu, but Émaé and

are

Polynesian outlier Polynesian outliers are a number of culturally Polynesian societies that geographically lie outside the main region of Polynesian influence, known as the Polynesian Triangle; instead, Polynesian outliers are scattered in the two other Pacific su ...

s. Other than Emae, on which is spoken a

Futunic language The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austron ...

, there are, according to ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

'', two languages spoken on the other islands: North Éfaté, spoken on Tongoa; and Namakura, spoken on Mataso, Makura, Tongoa, and Tongariki. These are all also spoken on the island of Éfaté, and are closely related to one another and the other languages of Éfaté and central Vanuatu in the language group Central Vanuatu languages.

References

Islands of Vanuatu Shefa Province Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean {{Vanuatu-geo-stub