The first land on Earth that welcomed in the new year was this secluded tropical beach on uninhabited Caroline Island – sorry, Millennium Island, the easternmost outpost of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati. Since Kiribati spans both sides of the 180° meridian, it has decided to push the international Date Line two time zones east to the eastern boundary of the country so that all of its residents operate on the same day. Millennium Island got its new name over a decade ago to commemorate it being the first land on Earth to experience the year 2000.

The first people to celebrate 2012 were the residents of Kiritmati¹ (Christmas Island), and the first people that saw sun rise on 1 January 2012 were the 1,200 residents of Kiritimati’s easternmost village, Banana. The first actual sunrise, however, occurred around this remote headland in East Antarctica (not that anyone saw it).

The country of Samoa used to be the last inhabited place on Earth to ring in the new year, but not any more. In an effort to coordinate itself better with regional powers New Zealand and Australia, on 31 December Samoa moved to the other side of the Date Line and jumped ahead a day, meaning the city of Apia was the first national capital to see the new year, an hour after Kiritmati.

Also making the move across the Date Line this year is the tiny New Zealander territory of Tokelau, an hour ahead of Samoa. Tokelau’s seat of government rotates between its three atolls, meaning that easternmost Fakaofo atoll was the first territorial capital to celebrate 2012.

With Samoa moving across the Date Line, the honour of being the last national capital to celebrate the new year is now shared by seven North American cities. Mexico City, Guatemala City, Belmopan (Belize), Tegucigalpa (Honduras), San Salvador (El Salvador), Managua (Nicaragua), and San Jose (Costa Rica) all celebrated 19 hours after Apia. We’ll show you Tegucigalpa as a cheap way to finally cross Honduras off our list of countries visited here at Google Sightseeing!

Six hours later, Alofi (Niue) and Pago Pago (American Samoa) were the last territorial capitals to say goodbye to 2011. Despite being just 50 km (30 mi) from the other half of Samoa, American Samoa is now 25 hours behind it!

Although part of the Tokelau archipelago to the northwest, Swains Island is governed by American Samoa. This open clearing is Taulaga, the only village on Swains and home of the last people on Earth who saw the sun come down on 2011.

As for the last places on Earth to leave 2011 behind, those were the remote, uninhabited United States outposts of Howland and Baker islands, some 26 hours after the people in Tokelau and eastern Kiribati did so. Considering they’re only visited every couple of years by researchers and Coast Guard vessels, it seems unlikely there was any sort of celebration taking place there at the time.

We hope 2012 is a good year for all of you, even if you don’t have as much left of it to enjoy as the American Samoans.²

Locations: Antarctica, North America, Polynesia, Samoa, U.S. Insular Areas, U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, Unincorporated territory of the U.S. / Categories: Islands, Weirdness

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The stereotype associated with private islands is a tropical paradise in the middle of the ocean covered in palm trees and rimmed by white sand beaches. Perhaps nothing meets that stereotype more than the Polynesian atoll of Tetiaroa, which was purchased by Marlon Brando in the 1960s for US$270,000 while scouting locations for Mutiny on the Bounty.

Brando’s goal was to turn the atoll into an eco-luxury resort, but there are surprisingly few amenities or buildings (even the air strip is rather plain). Prior to Brando, the atoll was used as a copra plantation, and the planted rows of Coconut palms are still quite visible.

At the other end of the spectrum are the eleven Bahamian islands of Musha Cay owned by illusionist David Copperfield (who modestly renamed them the ‘Islands of Copperfield Bay’), which operates as one of the world’s most exclusive resorts with rooms starting at US$37,500 per night (minimum three night stay, telephone use not included!)

Next stop is Fiji and Mago Island was bought in 2005 by Mel Gibson. Gibson also inherited an entire village when he bought the island, which is home to the island’s caretakers. The island has been left untouched for the most part other than the scar left by an airstrip.

Perhaps the king of islomania¹ is Virgin gazillionaire Sir Richard Branson, who boasts three islands to his name: Necker and Mosquito in the British Virgin Islands (his own private resort and an ecotourism project, respectively), and Makepeace Island in Queensland, which is currently being turned into a private resort for Virgin employees.

Some celebrities eschew the tropics for a private piece of land in their own backyards, such as Celine Dion, whose mansion sits on Île Gagnon in the Rivière des Mille Îles at Laval, Quebec.

The island’s mansion and swimming pool are clearly seen here but Street View can only get as far as the estate gates (which one must assume were put in place as sound insulation by Lavallois tired of hearing that bloody Titanic song).

True to type, adventurer/TV presenter Bear Grylls went with something a little more rudimentary, purchasing the treeless Welsh island of St. Tudwal’s Island West, which is home to not much more than a simple lighthouse and a stone cottage. The island’s cliffs are probably well-suited to a man who climbed Everest at age 23.

Of course that’s just scratching the surface of celebrity-owned islands. Do you know of any other private islands of the rich and famous on Google Maps? Let us know about them in the comments!

Locations: Australia, Polynesia, Quebec, The Bahamas, Wales / Categories: Islands

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Suwarrow is a low coral atoll deep in the Cook Islands of the South Pacific Ocean. It’s home to nearly one million sea birds, thousands of huge coconut crabs, hundreds of sharks, and many different rare species of turtles. There are only two permanent human residents in Suwarrow, both of whom live on the atoll’s largest island, Anchorage Island. They serve as caretakers to the numerous smaller islands around the lagoon.

Before the caretakers, a couple of different self-proclaimed hermits tried living on the island alone. One of them, Tom Neale, ended up living on Anchorage Island for 15 years! His hut has been transformed into the caretaker’s current residence, and remains visible today through the trees at the centre of the island.

Little is known about the island prior to its discovery in 1814, but during forest excavations in the 1870s numerous artefacts were found, including stone walls, platforms, kilns, and even a skeleton. Remnants of some of the other extremely low-lying islands can still be seen from satellite, but any historical evidence of previous inhabitants will have been washed away by tropical cyclones over the years.

That’s not all the secrets of Suwarrow however – it was once the location for the discovery of real life buried treasure! In the mid 19th century salvage work uncovered an old iron chest containing coins valued at over £14,000 ($22,000), which in today’s money would equate to around £3.2m ($5m dollars)!

Intriguingly, Shortly after the chest was found, a second chest was unearthed in a turtle’s nest by New Zealander Henry Mair, but he quickly reburied the stash. By all accounts he was killed before getting the chance to tell anyone where it was, so perhaps there really are more secrets to be uncovered on Suwarrow’s islands even today.

In modern times Suwarrow has become known as the Suwarrow National Park, and if you would like to visit, just hop in a boat or take a charted expedition from Rarotonga. Of course, you can read more about it on Wikipedia.

Locations: Polynesia / Categories: Islands

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On September 29, 2009, just south of the islands that make up the Independent State of Samoa in Polynesia, an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Moment Magnitude scale occurred, which generated a tsunami that swept across the nearby islands killing at least 149 people.

Most of the victims were on Samoa itself, where reports of a wave between 3 and 10 metres have emerged. Many low-lying areas in the Samoan islands have been completely destroyed, including the Prime Minister’s home village of Lepa.

Several other Polynesian islands were affected including the Unincorporated U.S. Territory of American Samoa to the east, where they lost at least 25 people, and to the south Tonga, where 6 people are so far known to have died.

Just 16 hours after the Samoan tsunami, another large earthquake occurred just off the southern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. This eruption registered a lower moment magnitude reading of 7.6, but even without a tsunami has still claimed at least 1,100 lives.

Separated by 9,749 km, these two earthquakes were unrelated. They also lie on separate faults; Samoa sits just north of the Tonga Trench, and Sumatra is located on one of the world’s most active fault lines, the Great Sumatran fault.

What the two earthquakes do share however, is that all the affected islands fall within the Pacific Ring of Fire, a 40,000 km long horseshoe-shaped region that is defined by a nearly continuous path of volcanic features, including 452 volcanoes. 75% of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes are located within the region, and together they are responsible for about 90% of the world’s earthquakes.

More information is available at Wikipedia about the 2009 Samoa earthquake, the 2009 Padang earthquake, and the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Locations: Indonesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Samoa, Unincorporated territory of the U.S. / Categories: Islands, Volcanoes

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The island was named for John Clipperton, an English pirate who visited the island briefly in the 18th century and may have used it to hide treasure… which so far has never been found!¹

12 kilometres in diameter, the ring-shaped island completely encloses a stagnant freshwater lagoon with many deep basins. One of these, known as “the bottomless hole,” contains an extremely high concentration of sulphuric acid, making Clipperton a less than desirable vacation destination.

Add to that a severe lack of fresh water and an abundance of poisonous land crabs – and Clipperton Island shapes up to be the perfect location for an evil super-villain’s island fortress of doom!

Though uninhabited today, at its peak around 1914 Clipperton was home to a group of 100 men, women and children, and was the site of a booming guano-mining² operation.

Only three years later, only 10 women and children remained – thanks to a lack of supplies and a homicidal lighthouse keeper. Since then the island has only been visited periodically by French military patrols and the occasional scientific expedition.

Locations: France, Polynesia / Categories: Islands, Weirdness

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Located in the south eastern Pacific Ocean, almost four thousand kilometers from continental Chile, Easter Island – or locally Rapa Nui – is one of the world’s most isolated inhabited islands¹, as well as one of the world’s most fascinating archaeological sites.

Photo of Rano Raraku Moai from mappic.org

The human history of Easter Island probably began somewhere between AD 300 and 1200 when people from the islands west of here landed with the tools, animals and provisions to stay for good. Although only 171 km² in area, at the time Easter Island had extensive forests, and the volcanic craters held drinking water – which is an important feature on an island with no rivers.

Rano Kau volcano (Picture)

Somewhere between AD 1000 and 1500, the Rapanui began a period of frantic construction of enormous stone statues – the Moai, for which Easter Island is world famous today. These enigmatic figures represented the islander’s deified ancestors, and were mostly placed near the coast, with their backs to the sea.

Moai of Ahu Nau Nau, Anakena Beach (Picture)

Moai are hewn from the island’s volcanic rock², and the largest Moai erected was almost 10 metres high and weighed 75 tonnes; their production and transportation is considered a remarkable accomplishment.

Moai of Ahu Tongariki, (Picture)

887 Moai have been identified to date, however only a quarter ever made it to one of the coastal Ahu platforms – nearly half of all Moai remain at a single site called Rano Raraku, the volcanic crater where 95% were originally carved. The landscape is littered with 397 Moai – some half-finished, some semi-submerged in the earth through erosion, and others never even detached from the rock.³

Rano Raraku crater, Rano Raraku Moai (Picture)

By the time explorers arrived here in the 18th Century, the forests of the island had completely disappeared. It’s unknown whether or not the Rapanui had used all the trees in the construction of the Moai, or if some other ecological factor was involved, but either way the islanders were now trapped – there was no longer any wood available for making seaworthy canoes.

After this things began to go rapidly downhill for the inhabitants of Easter Island. There followed a period of tribal wars, raids by Peruvian slavers, epidemics of European diseases, and the conversion of the entire island into a sheep farm. During this period much Rapa Nui culture was lost forever, nearly all of the Moai were deliberately toppled (probably by warring tribal factions), and by the late 19th century only 111 of the indigenous people remained alive.

Somehow, against all the odds, today there are several thousand descendants of the surviving 111 Rapanui living on Easter Island – which now has sustainable forestry and the longest runway in Polynesia (having been extended to function as an emergency landing place for the U.S. Space Shuttle). The Moai have returned too – many have been re-erected on their Ahus around the island and one has even been given new eyes.

Moai at Ahu Akivi, unusual in not being on the coast, and facing towards the sea (Picture)

Read more about Easter Island and Moai at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Josh, Adam, Reinhold and Didier.

Locations: Chile, Polynesia / Categories: Aircraft, Islands, Monuments, Natural Landmarks, Spacecraft

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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

Locations: Polynesia / Categories: Islands

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