Campbell Island, New Zealand
Satellite view
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| Geography | |
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| Location | Southern Ocean |
| Coordinates | 52°32′24″S 169°8′42″E / 52.54000°S 169.14500°E |
| Archipelago | Campbell Island group |
| Area | 112.68 km2 (43.51 sq mi) |
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New Zealand
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| Demographics | |
| Population | uninhabited |
Campbell Island / Motu Ihupuku is an uninhabited subantarctic island of New Zealand, and the main island of the Campbell Island group. It covers 112.68 square kilometres (43.51 sq mi) of the group's 113.31 km2 (43.75 sq mi), and is surrounded by numerous stacks, rocks and islets like Dent Island, Folly Island (or Folly Islands), Isle de Jeanette-Marie, and Jacquemart Island, the latter being the southernmost extremity of New Zealand. The island is mountainous, rising to over 500 metres (1,640 ft) in the south. A long fjord, Perseverance Harbour, nearly bisects it, opening out to sea on the east coast.
Campbell Island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Campbell Island was discovered in 1810 by Captain Frederick Hasselborough of the sealing brig Perseverance, which was owned by shipowner Robert Campbell's Sydney-based company Campbell & Co. (whence the island's name). Captain Hasselborough was drowned on 4 November 1810 in Perseverance Harbour.
The island became a seal hunting base, and the seal population was almost totally eradicated. The first sealing boom was over by the mid-1810s. The second was a brief revival in the 1820s. The whaling boom extended here in the 1830s and ’40s. In 1874, the island was visited by a French scientific expedition intending to view the transit of Venus. Much of the island’s topography is named after aspects of, or people connected with, the expedition. In the late 19th century, the island became a pastoral lease. Sheep farming was undertaken from 1896 until the lease, along with the sheep and a small herd of cattle, was abandoned in 1931 because of the Great Depression.
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