The Isle of Pines (, ; ) is an island in the

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

, in the

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 ...

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

, an

overseas collectivity The French overseas collectivities ( abbreviated as COM) are first-order administrative divisions of France, like the French regions, but have a semi-autonomous status. The COMs include some former French overseas colonies and other French ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. The island is part of the commune (municipality) of

L'Île-des-Pins L'Île-des-Pins () is a commune in France, commune in the South Province, New Caledonia, South Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. L'Île-des-Pins is made up of the Isle of Pines, New Caledonia, Isle of ...

, in the South Province of New Caledonia. The Isle of Pines is nicknamed ' ("the closest island to Paradise"). The island is around and measures by . It lies southeast of Grande Terre, New Caledonia's main island, and is southeast of the capital

Nouméa Nouméa () is the capital and largest city of the French Sui generis collectivity, special collectivity of New Caledonia and is also the largest Francophone city in Oceania. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main i ...

. There is one airport (

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...

ILP) with a runway. The Isle of Pines is surrounded by the New Caledonia Barrier Reef. The inhabitants of the island are mainly native Melanesian Kanaks, and the population is 2,000 (estimated 2006) (1989 population 1,465). The island is rich with animal life and is home to unusual creatures such as the crested gecko '' Correlophus ciliatus'' and the world's largest gecko, '' Rhacodactylus leachianus''. The ' is the island's highest point, at elevation. River Ouro is the longest river.

History

Melanesian people lived on the island for over 2000 years before the island was first visited by Europeans. Captain

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

in 1774 saw the island and renamed it on his second voyage to

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. Cook gave the island its name after seeing the tall native pines ('' Araucaria columnaris''). He never disembarked onto the island, but as he saw signs of inhabitance (smoke) assumed it was inhabited. In the 1840s,

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

and

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

missionaries arrived, along with merchants seeking

sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus ''Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods. Sanda ...

. The French took possession of the island in 1853 at which time the native Kunies converted to the Catholic religion. In 1872, the island became a French

penal colony A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer ...

, home to 3,000 political deportees from the

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (, ) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard (France), Nation ...

Sights

The ruins of a penal colony can be seen in the village of Ouro in the west of the island. The water tower of Ouro which was built by prisoners in 1874/75 and renovated in 2005 is still used. At the cemetery ''Cimetière des Déportés'' near Ouro is a pyramid-shaped memorial and the graves of 300 deportees who died between 1872 and 1880.

Archaeology

Scattered across the central plateau of the island lie more than 300 poorly understood mounds, some of which have been excavated and found to have concrete cores. No human remains or man-made objects have been found in the mounds; one snail shell embedded in excavated concrete was carbon-dated to 12,900 ± 450 years old. Much as with the American mima mounds, there is no consensus on what these mounds are, and proposed explanations have included

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

or later human construction, natural formations, or prehistoric birds’ nests, specifically of the extinct species '' Sylviornis neocaledoniae.''

Notable people

* Guillaume Vama (living), Kanak insurrectionist and agroforestry entrepreneur

References

External links

*
www.isle-of-pines.com
General and tourist information about the Isle of Pines *

Isle of Pines photos
{{Authority control Islands of New Caledonia