Galapagos Islands
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
How it came to be
The Galápagos are volcanic islands about 1,000 km off mainland Ecuador; Española, the oldest surviving one, is about 3.5 million years old. In 1535 Tomás de Berlanga, Bishop of Panama, drifted off course and found them uninhabited.
Ecuador annexed the islands in 1832. Charles Darwin spent about five weeks there in 1835 aboard HMS Beagle, observations that fed his theory of natural selection, and the islands were among the first sites inscribed in 1978.
Travellers who came here
- 1835-09
1835-09 · San Cristóbal (Chatham) Island, GalápagosOn 16 September he spent his first hour ashore at what is now Cerro Tijeretas, and his first field note recorded a mockingbird like those on the mainland.
1835-09 · Floreana (Charles) Island, GalápagosThe acting governor Nicholas Lawson told him he could tell from a tortoise's shell which island it came from.
1835-10 · Isabela (Albemarle) Island, GalápagosOn 1 October he landed near Tagus Cove, explored Beagle Crater and saw his first Galápagos land iguanas.
1835-10 · Santiago (James) Island, GalápagosHe was put ashore for nine days with the surgeon Benjamin Bynoe and their servants, collecting specimens of every kind.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).