Pukapuka

Template: Infobox Atoll / Maintenance / height Missing

Pukapuka (also: Danger Islands ) is a coral atoll in the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Geography

For atoll next to the homonymous inhabited main island include the three uninhabited motus ( smaller islands ) Toka, Motu Ko and Moto Kutawa. Among the inhabited islands in the Cook Islands, the atoll is one of the most isolated. Today about 500 people live on Pukapuka in three villages Roto, Yato and Ngake.

In the popular on the island sports competitions, the villages compete under the name ( and with flag and anthem of these states ) Netherlands, Japan and USA; these terms are often used in everyday life for the villages.

Traffic

Although the island has a well -developed and maintained airstrip has for airplanes, it is rarely served. The only scheduled flight of Air Rarotonga has been discontinued for economic reasons, after rises in fuel costs led to a sharp drop in passenger numbers. In addition, Pukapuka is closer to Samoa than with the other islands of the Cook Islands.

History

There is archaeological evidence of a settlement both by about 300 BC, and by about 400 AD It is unknown whether the atoll was continuously inhabited since the next documents on the 13th/14th. Century date.

Pukapuka was discovered on August 20, 1592 by Alvaro de Mendana.

In February 2005, Pukapuka was, as well as the neighboring island of Nassau, by the cyclone Percy hit hard.

Language

On Pukapuka and neighboring Nassau indigenous Polynesian language Pukapuka is spoken by 840 people. More 1200 Speaker of Pukapuka now live on Rarotonga, New Zealand and Australia ( Ethnologue 2005). Literary Pukapuka was known by the writer Robert Dean Frisbie in his book Iceland of Desire.