General Precedents.

Location - Geography - Climate - Population - Languaje - Mint - Flora and Fauna

Easter Island belongs to the Chilean territory from 1888 on the V Region of Valparaiso depends administratively.

Location

Located in the middle of the pacific south ocean, to 3.700 kilometers of the coast of Chile opposite to the region III, specifically opposite to Boiler in the 27º 09' of south latitude and the 109º 27' of length west. It is the oriental vertex of the gigantic archipelago of the Polynesia, forms a part of the triangle polinésico with Hawaii in the northern part, New Zealand in the western part and French Polynesia in the center. To 4.600 Km from Tahiti and to 7.000 Km from New Zealand. Rapa Nui is in extreme conditions of isolation, in the point most removed from any another place filled with the planet, being the most nearby populated land Pitcairn's island, to 2.000 km to the southwest.

Geography

The 166 km2 of your exiguous triangular surface is shaped by the summit of a great volcanic cone that gets up approximately three thousand meters from the oceanic bed. The Origin of the Easter Island is a volcanic recent (Plio-Pleistocene) and your structure is dominated by three big volcanoes, the Maunga Terevaka (511 msnm), the Poike (370 msnm) and the Rano Kau (400 msnm) and about 70 other minor craters of type parasite between that it is necessary to mention the Rano Raraku, the Puna Pau, the Maunga Orito and the Rano Aroi. The soils of the island are of volcanic origin and appear slightly waved with steep forts in some of the edges that give to the sea, specially in the margins of the volcanoes Rano Kao and Poike. It presents altitudes that go from the 0 to 511 m. That is the summit of the volcano Maunga Terevaka.

The island does not have permanent riverbeds of water, only some gullies have sporadic runoffs depending on the abundance and torrential on the rainfalls. Three lacustrine bodies exist in the craters of Rano Aroi, Rano Raraku and Rano Kao. Nevertheless, it presents a good availability of underground waters. The water shows near the coast in a series of wells, which often contain water lightly salt for your nearness to the sea.

In view of this origin, in the island there abounds the whole variety of volcanic stones, from the soft tufa that was in use for the moai, which only one finds in Rano Raraku, the red dross of the cylinders (pukao) on that they put as hats on some of the statues, the white and soft traquita, spending for the hardest basalt used in the walls of the ahu or the thin polished adzes (toki), up to the crystalline obsidian, the volcanic black glass of the sharp missiles or knives enmangados (mataa).

Climate

The climate is subtropical oceanic with sudden storms. It presents rains all the year round with 1.140 mm. As annual average, being the most rainy May and the driest September. The temperature fluctuates between 9ºC in winter and 28ºC in summer with an annual average of dampness of 77 %. Two big stations are identified: summer and winter, each one with your inter station: spring and autumn.
- The coldest month is an August of 14ºC to 17ºC during the day.
- The warmest month is a February of 24ºC to 28ºC during the day.
- The most rainy month of the year is A May.

The temperature of the water of the sea changes between 18ºC and 25ºC.

Population

The population of the island for 1999, according to the official census, was reaching 3460 inhabitants, now in the present year 2008 it has 4500 inhabitants.

Languaje

The official languages are the Spanish and the rapanui. In addition, for being a highly tourist zone the major segment of your inhabitants they handle in addition the French, Germany, Chinese, between others.

Mint

Nowadays is in use the Chilean peso, though also they work with the dollar and the Euro, for the tourist topic, in turn still the barter continues being in use as form of payment, the equal one like it was made by them your ancestors.

Flora and Fauna

Flora

In spite of his subtropical climate and, unlike other islands polynesic, the Easter Island presents a minimal ecological complexity and a great poverty in your diversity floristic. 90 % of the surface of the island is a dry sheet with a herbaceous abundant stratum composed for the most part for gramíneas introduced, between that occasional bushes are inserted and forest with spice also exotic.

Recent studies paleobotanists have demonstrated that in the past there existed in the island wooded masses of importance, extensive bushes and meadows of pastures and ferns. There have been identified 212 species of plants (extinct and current), of which 46 are native and 166 introduced ones.

Such arboreal extinct species as
Toromiro (Sophora toromiro)
Palm of pascua (Paschalococcus disperta)
Peralillo (Coprosma Sp.).

16 species of ferns, some acquaintances vulgarly like "Nehe Nehe" (Asplenium adiantoides, A. obtusatum, Doodia paschalis y Microlepia strigosa), Matu'a Pu'a (Polypodium scolopendria), "Tia Pito" (Ophioglossum coriaceum y O. reticulatum) y "Atua" (Vittaria elongata) And 8 more without names vernacular names of the kinds Thelypteris, Diplazium, Elaphoglossum, Polystichum, Davallia y Psilotum.

Other species of interest with names scientist and pascuense:

Fauna

The diversity of vertebrates is very poor. In mammals only there exist such introduced species as:
Mice (Rattus rattus)
Guarenes (Rattus norvegicus)
Lauchas (Card game musculus)

The same thing happens with terrestrial birds between which we find
Hen (moa)
doves (Columba livia)
sparrows (Passer domesticus)
tiuques (Milvago chimango)
partridge (Nothoprocta perdicaria)
diuca (Diuca diuca)

In case of the terrestrial reptiles two autochthonous species exist:
Moko uru-uru kahu (Lepidodactylus lugubris)
Moko Uriuri (Ablepharus boutoni)

In the sea the wealth is different, being relied on by a subtropical sea by corals where other animals live numerous. The fish described for the Easter Island are 111 species of which 97 are coastal species. The better represented families are:
Labridae (13 sp)
Muraenidae (7 sp)
Chaetodontidae (7 sp)
Holocentridae (6 sp)

It is necessary to mention also the lobster of Easter, called locally Hakarana very estimated by your size and flavor.
Due to the isolation of It Rapa Nui, approximately 25 % of the fish is endemic; this is, that are not in any other place of the world.
In addition there exist 11 species of marine birds that, together with living habitually in the island, nest in it. Some of these birds as:

On the other hand the coasts are visited by some such marine occasional reptiles as:
Tortoise tortoise-shell (Eretmochelys imbricata)
Green tortoise (Chelonia mydas and Ch. Japonica)
Viper of sea (Pelamys platurus)

There exist in addition a few small own and exclusive snails of land of the Polynesia that, surely, were travelling from stowaways together with the navigators when these were transporting plants with land.