Galápagos Islands

Galápagos Islands, a group of nineteen volcanic islands and numerous islets in the eastern Pacific, lying astride the equator, 600 miles west of mainland Ecuador, of which the islands are a province. The island group, officially named the Archipiélago de Colón by Ecuador in 1892 to honor Christopher Columbus, encompasses a land area of 3,075 square miles and is spread out over 36,000 square miles of sea. The population of the Galapagos was listed as 9,785 in the 1990 census.

Each island was named by both Spanish and English explorers and renamed by Ecuador in 1892. The official Ecuadorian names are cited in this article; however, researchers will find the English names in most earlier descriptions of the islands. The largest island is Isabela, approximately 82 miles long, covering an area of 1,700 square miles, over half the land mass of the others combined. Isabela is typical of the islands in its lava composition; it also has the highest peak, Mount Azul, at 5,541 feet. The five other larger islands are Santa Cruz, Fernandina, San Cristóbal, San Salvador, and Santa María.

In 1535, Thomás de Berlanga, bishop of Panama, inadvertently discovered the Galápagos when his ship was blown off course en route to Peru. He named them Las Encantadas (The Enchanted) due to their mist-shrouded otherworldly appearance and the unusual wildlife typified by giant tortoises and iguanas. The islands were a haven for pirates in the seventeenth century and became a regular stop for whaling vessels in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The islands were unclaimed until 1832, when Ecuador took official possession.

In 1835 the English naturalist Charles Darwin visited the islands and chronicled their flora and fauna. His experiences in the Galápagos contributed significantly to his ideas about evolution and natural selection and his account of the islands brought them international acclaim.

In the early twentieth century, Ecuador considered selling the islands to France, Chile, and the United States but decided to retain possession. In World War II, Ecuador permitted the United States to construct an air base on Baltra Island for the purpose of patrolling Pacific approaches to the Panama Canal. The base was turned over to Ecuador in 1946 and today serves as the principal airstrip.

The unique native animals and plants remain the main attraction of the islands. The archipelago's tortoise is thought to be the longest-lived animal on earth. While there are only nine mammals, two bats, and seven rodents, no amphibians, few reptiles, and approximately eighty species of birds indigenous to the islands, animal life is nevertheless of extreme scientific importance due to the islands' centuries of isolation from humans in an austere environment that has led to unique adaptive changes. Large parts of the islands are now preserved as national parks and wildlife refuges.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Charles Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World in HMS Beagle (1839).

William Beebe, Galápagos, World's End (1924).

Theodore Wolf, Geography and Geology of Ecuador (1933).

Herman Melville, The Encantadoas or Enchanted Islands, with an introduction, critical epilogue, and bibliographical notes by Victor Wolfgang von Hagen (1940).

Victor Wolfgang Von Hagen, Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands (1949).

Ian Thornton, Darwin's Islands: A Natural History of the Galápagos (1971).

John Hickham, The Enchanted Islands (1986).

Additional Bibliography

De Roy, Tui. Galapagos, Islands Born of Fire. Toronto: Warwick Pub., 1998.

Luna Tobar, Alfredo. Historia política internacional de las islas Galápagos. Quito, Ecuador: Ediciones Abya-Yala, 1997.

Ospina Peralta, Pablo. Galápagos, naturaleza y sociedad: Actores sociales y conflictos ambientales en las islas Galápagos. Quito, Ecuador: Corporación Editora Nacional, 2006.

Palmerlee, Danny, Michael Grosberg, and Carolyn McCarthy. Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands. Footscray, Vic.: Lonely Planet, 2006.

Rachowiecki, Rob, and Teresa Bladé. Ecuador y las isles Galápagos. Barcelona: GeoPlanet, 2001.

Stewart, Paul D. Galápagos: The Islands that Changed the World. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006.

Tagliaferro, Linda. Galápagos Islands: Nature's Delicate Balance at Risk. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner, 2001.

                                George M. Lauderbaugh