« Second Annual Google Sightseeing Island Week!
Mud Island (Island Week 2) »

Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

Pitcairn Islands (Island Week 2)

Tuesday, 28th August 2007 by James

(It’s Island Week 2 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week.)

The Pitcairns are a group of four islands: Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno, which are all located near New Zealand in the Pacific Ocean.

The islands are classed as a British overseas territory and have an official population of just 48, making them the least populated jurisdiction in the world.

All 48 of the islands’ inhabitants, who are just 9 different families, live in Adamstown on the main island of Pitcairn. Adamstown is therefore unchallenged as the capital city, and with that title earns the record for World’s smallest capital city.

The population is unlikely to rise anytime soon; the islanders mostly descend from British mutineers of the HMAV Bounty and only two children have been born in the last 21 years.

Wikipedia Links: Pitcairn Islands and Adamstown.

Thanks: koen & tizerst

Rate This Sight! 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars
(14 votes, average: 3.64 out of 5)
Locations: Polynesia / Categories:

10 Responses to 'Pitcairn Islands (Island Week 2)'

  1. 1. Marty says: August 28th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    Strange how you can zoom in, but not out…

  2. 2. Patrick says: August 28th, 2007 at 6:00 pm

    I would LOVE to visit these places sometime. I wonder what it feels like to be so far, far, far away from everyone else on the planet?

  3. Google Sightseeing Admin
    3. Alex says: August 28th, 2007 at 7:16 pm

    They have no airport there! Wikipedia says:

    To get to Pitcairn it is necessary to fly to Tahiti, then Mangareva, then embark on a further 30-hour boat ride. There is one boat every several months.

    Mental!

  4. 4. Gustav says: August 28th, 2007 at 11:56 pm

    It is also the place where more than half of the male population are rapists.

    It is also interesting to note that the first native women were not actually native… they were kidnapped by the HMAV Bounty mutineers from a neighboring island and taken to Pitcairn.

    I guess an apple can’t fall too far from the tree…

    I would stay away from this place…

    Here’s the story:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3709328.stm

  5. 5. JoshuaPerry says: August 29th, 2007 at 2:00 am

    Wait, so if I show up with say 100 bullets and a machine gun, I could own some islands?

  6. 6. Patrick says: August 29th, 2007 at 12:17 pm

    insofar as the “rape” thing goes, I mean come on…..it’s not like there is a whole heck of a lot else to do. Look at how tiny that friggin island is for krissakes!!

  7. 7. John Spalding says: August 29th, 2007 at 2:38 pm

    There may be no airport, but there is a runway…

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  8. 8. Patrick says: August 29th, 2007 at 5:59 pm

    That airport is not technically part of Pitcairn. It’s part of the Gambier Islands.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambier_Islands

  9. 9. dude. says: August 30th, 2007 at 1:21 am

    How about using a boat plane???? No runway needed when you can land on the water…………

  10. 10. John says: August 30th, 2007 at 3:14 pm

    *snap* I guess that shows how much I know about small, Pacific islands.

Leave a Reply

This form will auto-link URLs or you can use simple HTML, <a href="http://googlesightseeing.com">Like this</a>.

Link to specific places either as a Google Maps page or a decimal latitude and longitude written like this: lat/lng:55.949400,-3.200000.

If you've found an unrelated sight that you think should be posted in its own entry then use the suggestion form!