Cocos Island
Cocos Island (Spanish: Isla del Coco) is an island in the Pacific Ocean administered by Costa Rica, approximately 550 km (342 mi; 297 nmi) southwest of the Costa Rican mainland.[2] It constitutes the 11th[3] of the 15 districts of Puntarenas Canton of the Province of Puntarenas.[4][5] With an area of approximately 23.85 km2 (9.21 sq mi), the island is more or less rectangular in shape. It is the southernmost point of geopolitical North America if non-continental islands are included, and the only landmass above water on the Cocos tectonic plate.
This article is about the east Pacific island. For the Indian Ocean islands, see Cocos (Keeling) Islands. For other uses, see Cocos Island (disambiguation).Cocos Island National Park
Approximately 550 km (340 mi) off the shore of Costa Rica
1978
Natural: ix, x
1997 (21st Session)
2002
Isla del Coco
10 April 1998
940[1]
27 April 1970
23.52 km2 (9.08 sq mi)
0 m (0 ft)
The entirety of Cocos Island has been designated a Costa Rican National Park since 1978, and has no permanent inhabitants other than Costa Rican park rangers. Surrounded by deep waters with counter-currents, Cocos Island is admired by scuba divers for its populations of hammerhead sharks, rays, dolphins and other large marine species. The wet climate and oceanic qualities give Cocos an ecological character that is not shared with either the Galápagos Archipelago or any of the other islands (for example, Malpelo, Gorgona or Coiba) in the eastern Pacific Ocean.[6] Because of the unique ecology of the island and its surrounding waters, Cocos Island National Park became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.[7] The island can only be reached by sea, which usually takes 36 to 48 hours.[8]
History[edit]
Prehistory[edit]
The island is believed to have been uninhabited by humans prior to European discovery.[49] However, there has been little archaeological investigation into oceanic eastern Pacific islands, including Cocos Island.[50] This is due to the fragile environments on such islands, which for many years have been untouched by humans, and because these islands are at a considerable distance from islands that had Polynesian populations.[50] Likewise, Indigenous Americans on the west coast of the continent were not known to inhabit any remote eastern Pacific islands.[51] In 2008, Cocos Island, the Desventuradas Islands, Galápagos Islands and Juan Fernández Islands (all uninhabited when discovered by Europeans) were surveyed by archaeologists from the Australian National University. Their investigation found that the Galápagos Islands may have been visited by a Polynesian vessel, but it is unclear what their findings were for Cocos Island.[50]
In fiction[edit]
The book Desert Island[67] proposed the highly detailed theory that Daniel Defoe used the Isla del Coco as an accurate model for his descriptions of the island inhabited by the marooned Robinson Crusoe. However, Defoe placed Crusoe's island not in the Pacific, but rather off the coast of Venezuela in the Atlantic Ocean.[68]
Robinson's neighbouring Terra Firma is shown on the colour map of Joannes Jansson (Amsterdam) depicting the northeastern corner of South America, entitled Terra Firma et Novum Regnum Granatense et Popayan. It belongs to the early group of plates printed by Willem Blaeu from 1630 onwards. The property called Terra Firma was the Isthmus of Darien.[69]
The stories of pirates and buried treasure associated with the island are reputed to have been the inspiration for the novel Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson.[70][71]