Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands (Spanish: Islas Galápagos) are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific, located around the Equator 900 km (560 mi) west of the mainland of South America. They form the Galápagos Province of the Republic of Ecuador, with a population of slightly over 33,000 (2020). The province is divided into the cantons of San Cristóbal, Santa Cruz, and Isabela, the three most populated islands in the chain. The Galápagos are famous for their large number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin in the 1830s and inspired his theory of evolution by means of natural selection. All of these islands are protected as part of Ecuador's Galápagos National Park and Marine Reserve.
"Galápagos" redirects here. For the province, see Galápagos Province. For other uses, see Galápagos (disambiguation).Geography
127
18
1,707 m (5600 ft)
33,042 (2020)
3/km2 (8/sq mi)
Galápagos Islands
Natural
vii, viii, ix, x
1978 (2nd session)
2001 and 2003
2007–2010
Thus far, there is no firm evidence that Polynesians or the indigenous peoples of South America reached the islands before their accidental discovery by Bishop Tomás de Berlanga in 1535. If some visitors did arrive, poor access to fresh water on the islands seems to have limited settlement. The Spanish Empire similarly ignored the islands, although during the Golden Age of Piracy various pirates used the Galápagos as a base for raiding Spanish shipping along the Peruvian coast. The goats and black and brown rats introduced during this period greatly damaged the existing ecosystems of several islands. English sailors were chiefly responsible for exploring and mapping the area. Darwin's voyage on HMS Beagle was part of an extensive British survey of the coasts of South America. Ecuador, which won its independence from Spain in 1822 and left Gran Colombia in 1830, formally occupied and claimed the islands on 12 February 1832 while the voyage was ongoing.[2] José de Villamil, the founder of the Ecuadorian Navy, led the push to colonize and settle the islands,[2] gradually supplanting the English names of the major islands with Spanish ones. The United States built the islands' first airport as a base to protect the western approaches of the Panama Canal in the 1930s. After World War II, its facilities were transferred to Ecuador. With the growing importance of ecotourism to the local economy, the airport modernized in the 2010s, using recycled materials for any expansion and shifting entirely to renewable energy sources to handle its roughly 300,000 visitors each year.
Names[edit]
The Galápagos or Galapagos Islands are named for their giant tortoises,[3] which were more plentiful at the time of their discovery. The Spanish word galápago derives from a pre-Roman Iberian word meaning "turtle", the meaning it still has in most dialects. Within Ecuadorian Spanish, however, it is now also used to describe the islands' large tortoises.[4] The islands' name is pronounced [ˈislas ɣaˈlapaɣos] in most dialects of Spanish but [ˈihlah ɣaˈlapaɣoh] by locals. (The accent over the second A does not change the name's pronunciation but moves the stress from the 3rd syllable to the 2nd.) It is usually read /ɡəˈlæpəɡəs/ in British English and /ɡəˈlɑːpəɡəs/ in American English.[5] The name is first attested as the Spanish/Latin hybrid Insulae de los Galopegos ("Islands of the Turtles") on the map of the Americas in Abraham Ortelius's Theater of the Lands of the World (Theatrum Orbis Terrarum), first published in 1570.[6]
The islands were also previously known as the Enchanted Isles or Islands (Islas Encantadas) from sailors' difficulty with the winds and currents around them;[7] as the Ecuador Archipelago (Archipiélago de Ecuador) or Archipelago of the Equator (Archipiélago del Ecuador) following their settlement by Ecuador in 1832;[8] and as the Colon or Columbus Archipelago (Archipiélago del Colón) in 1892 upon the quadricentennial of Columbus's first voyage.[8]
The islands were mapped by the English buccaneer William Ambrosia Cowley in 1684 and by the British captain James Colnett in 1793. The names they chose to honour British kings, nobles, and naval officers of their eras continued to be used for the major islands until recently and are still used for many of the smaller islets. The Spanish names have varied over time, but the current official names have gradually supplanted the English ones for most of the major islands.[8]
History[edit]
Pre-Columbian era[edit]
Whether Polynesians or the indigenous peoples of South America ever made it to the islands is disputed. Oceanic Pacific islands in the same general area as Galápagos—including Clipperton, Cocos, the Desventuradas, the Juan Fernández Islands, and the Revillagigedos—were all uninhabited when discovered by Europeans, with no evidence to indicate any prehistoric human activity.[29][30][31] The easternmost oceanic island in the South Pacific that was discovered with a human population was Easter Island,[30] whose Rapa Nui people are known to be Polynesian rather than South American.[32]
In 1572, the Spanish chronicler Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa claimed that Topa Inca Yupanqui, the second Sapa Inca of the Inca Empire, had visited the archipelago. There is, however, little evidence for this and many experts consider it a far-fetched legend, especially since the Incas were not typically a seafaring people.[33] A 1952 archaeological survey by Thor Heyerdahl and Arne Skjølsvold found potsherds and other artifacts from several sites on the islands that they claimed suggested visitation by South Americans during the pre-Columbian era.[34] The group located an Inca flute and shards from more than 130 pieces of ceramics, later identified as pre-Incan. However, no remains of graves, ceremonial vessels, or buildings have ever been found, suggesting no permanent settlement occurred before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century.[35] A 2016 reanalysis of Heyerdahl and Skjølsvold's archaeological sites rejected their conclusions. They found that—at all locations excavated by the 1952 survey—artifacts of Indian and European origin were interspersed without the distinct spatial or stratigraphic arrangement that would be expected from independent sequential deposition. (Heyerdahl and Skjølsvold had noted this in their original report while ignoring its implications.) Radiocarbon dates from the sites placed them in the post-Spanish era and preliminary paleoenvironmental analysis showed no disturbance older than 500 years before present, suggesting no evidence from the survey that the islands were visited prior to their Spanish discovery in 1535. The authors suggested that native artifacts found by Heyerdahl and Skjølsvold had probably been brought as mementos or souvenirs at the time of Spanish occupation.[36]
A 2008 report by archeologists from the Australian National University stated that certain Asia–Pacific taxa may have been growing in the Galápagos prior to 1535. This opens a direction for future research which might "constitute a strong line of evidence for accidental or deliberate landfall in the Galápagos by a Polynesian vessel",[30] although the report noted current scholarship finds no evidence that Pacific islands beyond Easter Island "play[ed] a 'stepping stone' role in the interaction between Amerindians or Polynesians in prehistory".[30] The lack of fresh water on the islands seems to have limited visits and settlement, if any ever occurred.
