It is a triangular-shape volcanic high island with a total area of 180 square kilometers. The most prominent physical features are
the three volcanic peaks
, each located at one corner of the island. The land is either barren rock or covered by grass or shrubs, although parts were heavily forested in the past.
What landforms are in Easter Island?
The geography of the island is dominated by
volcanic landforms
, including the large crater Rana Kao at the southwest end of the island and a line of cinder cones that stretch north from the central mountain.
What is the landscape like on Easter Island?
Like many Pacific Islands, the physical landscape of Easter Island is dominated by
volcanic topography
and it was formed geologically by three extinct volcanoes. Easter Island is considered a distinct eco-region by ecologists.
What shape is Easter Island?
Easter Island is a volcanic high island, consisting mainly of three extinct coalesced volcanoes: Terevaka (altitude 507 metres) forms the bulk of the island, while two other volcanoes, Poike and Rano Kau, form the eastern and southern headlands and give the island its
roughly triangular shape
.
What are the main features of Easter Island?
An isolated triangle measuring 14 miles long by seven miles wide, Easter Island was formed by a series of volcanic eruptions. In addition to its hilly terrain, the island contains
many subterranean caves with corridors that extend deep into mountains of volcanic rock
.
Why is Easter Island famous?
Easter Island, Spanish Isla de Pascua, also called Rapa Nui, Chilean dependency in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is the easternmost outpost of the Polynesian island world. It is
famous for its giant stone statues
. … Sculptures cut from volcanic rock, Easter Island.
Does Easter Island have trees?
Easter Island was covered with palm trees for over 30,000 years, but
is treeless today
. There is good evidence that the trees largely disappeared between 1200 and 1650.
Does Easter Island have a flag?
The
flag
of Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Te Reva Reimiro) is the flag of Easter Island, a special territory of Chile. It was first flown in public alongside the national flag on 9 May 2006.
What is the currency of Easter Island?
The official currency on Easter Island is
the Chilean Peso
(CLP; approximately 645 pesos to one U.S. dollar).
Why is Easter Island important to Chile?
Famous for the towering stone statues known as moai
, the island of Rapa Nui holds immense cultural value to its native Rapa Nui clans, a society of Polynesian origin who arrived on the island around 400 A.D. With more than 100,000 visitors annually, tourism sustains the “Easter Island” economy—but management of tourism …
Does Easter Island get snow?
When can you find snow in Easter Island?
Weather stations report no annual snow.
Does Easter Island have beaches?
Easter Island perhaps isn’t famous among world class beachgoers for having
a broad supply of sandy beaches
, but there are a few worth mentioning. The biggest beach of Rapa Nui is Anakena, located at the north-east side of the island. … The beach has an ahu with seven moai statues in the sand.
Does it rain in Easter Island?
The rainfall on
Easter Island is quite abundant
, around 1,050 millimeters (42 inches) per year, and it’s evenly spread over the seasons, though it’s more abundant in April and May. Sometimes, periods of bad weather with heavy rains may occur during the winter, from June to August.
Who lives on Easter Island today?
Today, the people living on Easter Island are
largely descendants of the ancient Rapa Nui
(about 60%) and run the bulk of the tourism and conservation efforts on the island. Many locals living on Easter Island have livelihoods that involve the water—which makes sense!
How tall are the Easter Island heads?
On average, they stand
13 feet high
and weigh 14 tons, human heads-on-torsos carved in the male form from rough hardened volcanic ash. The islanders call them “moai,” and they have puzzled ethnographers, archaeologists, and visitors to the island since the first European explorers arrived here in 1722.
What really happened on Easter Island?
In this story, made popular by geographer Jared Diamond’s bestselling book Collapse, the Indigenous people of the island, the Rapanui, so destroyed their environment that, by around 1600,
their society fell into a downward spiral of warfare, cannibalism, and population decline
.
