Emae is an island in the

Shepherd Islands The Shepherd Islands (coordinates ) are a group of islands lying between the larger islands of Epi and Éfaté, in the Shefa province of Vanuatu. The aggregate land area is . They were named by Captain Cook after Anthony Shepherd, a British as ...

, Shefa,

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

Geography

Maunga Lasi is the highest peak at 644 m. It forms the northern rim of the (mostly) underwater volcano of Makura, which also covers the nearby islands of

Makura Makura, locally known as Makira, is a small, inhabited island in Shefa Province of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean. Makura is a part of the Shepherd Islands archipelago. Geography The estimated terrain elevation above the sea level is some 132 met ...

and

Mataso Mataso is an island in the Shefa of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean. The island is a part of Shepherd Islands archipelago. Geography The island of Mataso is located south of Makira. It is formed by two hills separated by white sandy beaches known ...

. It is long and up to wide, with an area of . ShepherdIslandsMap

Population

The island supports a population of about 750, growing at 3.1% per year. The main settlement is Makata. The principal economic activity is

subsistence agriculture Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow crops on smallholdings to meet the needs of themselves and their families. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements. Planting decisions occu ...

. The

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performance o ...

of the island is $457 per capita. Unlike the surrounding islands populated by

Melanesians Melanesians are the predominant and Indigenous peoples of Oceania, indigenous inhabitants of Melanesia, in an area stretching from New Guinea to the Fiji Islands. Most speak one of the many languages of the Austronesian languages, Austronesian l ...

, Emae and Makura are

Polynesian outlier Polynesian outliers are a number of culturally Polynesian societies that geographically lie outside the main region of Polynesian influence, known as the Polynesian Triangle; instead, Polynesian outliers are scattered in the two other Pacific su ...

s. The island's language, also called

Emae Emae is an island in the Shepherd Islands, Shefa, Vanuatu. Geography Maunga Lasi is the highest peak at 644 m. It forms the northern rim of the (mostly) underwater volcano of Makura, which also covers the nearby islands of Makura and Mataso. ...

, is in the

Futunic language The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austro ...

family, which includes most of the outliers in Vanuatu. North Efate, one of the other languages of the archipelago, is used as a second language. Many of the islanders now live in

Port Vila Port Vila ( ; ), or simply Vila (), is the capital of Vanuatu and its largest city. It is on the island of Efate, in Shefa Province. The population was 49,034 as of the 2020 census. In 2020, the population of Port Vila formed 16.3% of the ...

. The crowning of four Emae chiefs in 2004 occurred there, and many of the tribal chiefs live there.Emae Chiefs

Transportation

The island has an airport, Aromai Airport, Siwo . The nearby Cook's Reef is a popular dive site.

References

External links

UN Earthwatch Island site

Ethnologue page for Emae
Islands of Vanuatu Polynesian outliers {{Vanuatu-geo-stub

Geography

Population

Transportation

See also

References

External links