Nukutavake

Template: Infobox Island / Maintenance / height missing

Nukutavake is an island in the Tuamotu archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. Politically, it is part of French Polynesia, where the homonymous municipality Nukutavake. Neighboring Atolls are Pinaki, 15 kilometers south-east and Vairaatea, 38 kilometers southwest located.

Nukutavake is one of the few upscale atolls of the archipelago. The lower-lying regions are considered former, now filled with silt lagoon. Nukutavake is about 5.2 km long, up to 1.3 km wide and has an area of ​​5.5 km ². In the southeast of the island is the airport of Nukutavake.

The island was discovered in 1767 by the British navigator Samuel Wallis with his ship Dolphin for Europe and baptized Reine Charlotte. At the sight of the ship fled the entire population with their boats to a conflict out of the way to go. Frederick Beechey, of the island visited in 1826, she found uninhabited. Today, 170 inhabitants ( as of 2007) on Nukutavake that the capital Tavananui mainly inhabit the northeast of the island. Main livelihood of the population are fishing and copra production.

Allegedly the most ancestors of the present inhabitants, all prisoners, the early 1870s were brought by the ship's captain Bully Hayes in the context of Blackbirding on the island.