Pitcairn in the southern Pacific Ocean is the least populated island and has the status of a country. This British Overseas Territory has a landmass of 1.75 sq miles and a population of just 50-60 people. In terms of population, Pitcairn beats even Vatican City which has between 800 and 850 residents for the title of smallest country.
The presence of stone tools, burial sites, petroglyphs, and other artifacts indicates that Pitcairn Island had been inhabited, probably by Polynesians, before its discovery by European explorers. The British ship HMS Swallow found the island in 1767, and its captain, Philip Carteret, named it Pitcairn for the sailor who first sighted it. Its population is descended from the mutineers of the British ship HMS Bounty and their Tahitian Polynesian consorts. In 1789, on a voyage from Tahiti to the West Indies with a cargo of breadfruit saplings, the crew, led by the first mate, Fletcher Christian, mutinied and set their captain, William Bligh, and a number of loyal sailors adrift and set course for the Austral (now Tubuaï) Islands. The mutineers and their Tahitian companions eventually reached uninhabited Pitcairn (1790), went ashore, and then burned the ship. The island community survived in obscurity until it was discovered by American whalers in 1808. Ships began visiting occasionally from Britain bearing books and other supplies. The population grew, and the island’s limited natural resources increasingly became a source of concern. Leaders of the community proposed mass emigration to Tahiti or to Australia, but after the islanders had been resettled on Tahiti (1831), many grew dissatisfied and returned to Pitcairn. Thereafter the island became a port of call for whalers and passenger ships steaming between the United States and Australia. In 1856, because of overpopulation, some of the islanders were removed to Norfolk Island east of Australia, and to this day the mutineers’ descendants remain divided between the two places. The official languages are English and Pitkern (a mixture of Tahitian and 18th-century English).
Credit : Britannica
Picture Credit : Google
