Easter Island

Easter Island, called Rapa Nui by its people and Isla de Pascua in Spanish, is an island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. It is a special territory of Chile and is renowned for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapa Nui people. UNESCO named it a World Heritage Site in 1995, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park. Researchers differ on when its Polynesian settlers arrived, with some evidence pointing to around the year 800 and a 2007 study suggesting closer to 1200. It is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world: the nearest inhabited land, Pitcairn Island, is about 2,075 kilometres away. Chile annexed the island in 1888, and the 2017 census counted 7,750 people, of whom 3,512 identified as Rapa Nui.