Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island is an external territory of Australia in the Pacific Ocean, lying between New Zealand and New Caledonia. It is about 1,412 kilometres east of Evans Head on the Australian coast and about 900 kilometres from Lord Howe Island. The territory is made up of Norfolk Island itself together with the neighbouring Phillip Island and Nepean Island, covering about 35 square kilometres, and its capital is Kingston. At the 2021 census it had 2,188 inhabitants. East Polynesians were the first to settle the island but had left before Great Britain settled it in 1788 as part of the colonisation of Australia. It served as a convict penal settlement from 1788 until 1855, apart from an abandonment between 1814 and 1825, and in 1856 descendants of the Bounty mutineers were moved there from Pitcairn Island. The United Kingdom formally transferred the island to Australia in 1914. The Norfolk Island pine, an evergreen native to the island, is its symbol and appears on its flag.