Deep in the Pacific Ocean lies a British Overseas Territory that is one of the world’s remote places, home to just 50 people.
Over 3,106 miles from New Zealand and 3,418 miles from South America, the nearest inhabited island is Mangareva of French Polynesia, 336 miles away.
Consisting of four separate tiny islands – Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno – the Pitcairn Islands are scattered over several hundred miles of ocean.
Its inhabitants are mostly descendants of HMS Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian companions who settled there in the 18th century.
With no airport and only reachable by a two-day boat trip, life here is truly one of the most isolated on Earth.
Life on the only inhabited island of the group, Pitcairn, is a bizarre blend of cultures, where the New Zealand dollar is used as a currency and the monarch is Charles III. While the late Queen and the King have never stepped onto the island, the late Prince Philip did stop at Pitcairn in 1971 while travelling on the royal yacht Britannia.
The community survives through crafts, honey, tourism and quarterly supply ships from New Zealand.
The earliest known inhabitants of the islands were Polynesians who occupied Pitcairn and Henderson for several centuries until the islands were abandoned sometime between the 16th and 18th centuries.
They then remained uninhabited until they were rediscovered by Europeans, first by the Portuguese sailor Pedro Fernandes de Queirós in 1606 and then by a 15-year-old crew member on the British warship HMS Swallow in 1767, Robert Pitcairn, after whom the island was named.
In 1790, nine of the mutineers from the British naval vessel HMS Bounty, along with the native Tahitian men and women who were with them (six men, 11 women, and a baby girl), settled on Pitcairn Island and set fire to the Bounty. The ship is still visible underwater in Bounty Bay.
The mutineers lived in isolation for some 20 years before coming into contact with the outside world. In 1808, American whalers discovered the island, and soon other ships began visiting bringing books and other supplies from Britain.
The population quickly grew and the island became a port of call for whalers and passenger ships travelling between the US and Australia. At its peak, Pitcairn was home to 233 people in 1937, but has slowly declined due to emigration, mainly to New Zealand.
Pitcairn has two official languages, English and the unique Piktern, a mix of English and Tahitian. Ioan Thomas, Britain’s High Commissioner to New Zealand, is the Governor of Pitcairn.
The island contains several buildings and services, including a church, a tennis court, and a museum, which exhibits artefacts from the HMS Bounty. Today, the island’s economy is primarily based on tourism, where small groups come by charter vessels or cruise ships.
While life may seem quiet and idyllic, the island’s immigration website warns that “Life on Pitcairn will not be for everyone. The island’s isolation and small size at times make life on Pitcairn physically demanding and challenging.
“Residents need to be able to turn their hand to a wide range of tasks, and handle difficulties with pragmatism and creativity.”
