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Kermadec Islands


The Kermadec Islands /kərˈmædɛk/ are a subtropical island arc in the South Pacific Ocean 800–1,000 km (500–620 mi) northeast of New Zealand's North Island, and a similar distance southwest of Tonga. The islands are part of New Zealand, 33 km2 (12.7 sq mi) in total area and nowadays uninhabited, except for the permanently manned Raoul Island Station, the northernmost outpost of New Zealand.

Polynesian people settled the Kermadec Islands in around the 14th century (and perhaps previously in the 10th century), but the first Europeans to reach the area—the Lady Penrhyn in May 1788—found no inhabitants. The islands were named for the Breton captain Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec, who visited the islands as part of the d'Entrecasteaux expedition in the 1790s. European settlers, initially the Bell family, lived on the islands from the early nineteenth century until 1937, as did whalers. One of the Bell daughters, Elsie K. Morton, recounted the family's experience there in her memoir, Crusoes of Sunday Island.

The Station consists of a government meteorological and radio station, and a hostel for Department of Conservation officers and volunteers, that has been maintained since 1937. It lies on the northern terraces of Raoul Island, at an elevation of about 50 m (160 ft), above the cliffs of Fleetwood Bluff. It is the northernmost inhabited outpost of New Zealand.


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