Where is Easter Island?

Easter Island

Known as ‘Rapa Nui’ by the indigenous community and otherwise known as ‘Easter Island’, is situated some 3,700km west of the mainland of South America in the Pacific Ocean. This isolated position makes it quite a trek for most visitors. Those that do make the effort to visit the 117sq km island, are greeted with a host of wonders making it an exceptional travel destination.

Easter Island was first discovered by Europeans back in 1722 on Easter Sunday, hence the name of the island. However, inhabitants date back to an estimated 300 CE. This is when it was thought the large statues known as “moai”, were carved and erected by the Polynesian community. Scattered around Rano Raraku, a volcanic crater, are 397 moai in various stages of completion. The Rapa Nui National Park gained inscription as a World Heritage site with UNESCO during 1995.

Lonely Planet Travel Guide – Chile & Easter Island

Map

TravelTipsPlus Google Map of Easter Island

One Great Reason to Visit Easter Island

One great reason to visit this travel destination is to view this unique, isolated landscape and monolithic statues.

David Attenborough Explains Easter Island

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 1:45 am and is filed under South America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.