Our Series on Remote Islands takes us to the Tristan da Cunha Archipelago, a group of 4 islands located in the Southern Atlantic Ocean.
These windswept islands host one of the most isolated human communities in the World. While its location, about half way between South America and the Southern tip of Africa, long made it a useful refueling station for British ships, modern shipping does not need this type of base, and Tristan da Cunha became an extremely remote outpost of the British Empire. A volcanic eruption in 1961 forced a temporary relocation of the entire population to the British Isles, but most people returned by 1963. The current population of about 250 lives mostly of farming and fishing, having only occasional contacts with outside ships. The territory is officially a dependency of the British territory of St Helena, an island located 1300 nautical miles to the North.
Tristan da Cunha
