Amanu, Timanu, or Karere,
is an
atoll
An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical parts of the oceans and seas where corals can develop. Most ...
in the
Tuamotu archipelago
The Tuamotu Archipelago or the Tuamotu Islands (, officially ) are a French Polynesian chain of just under 80 islands and atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean. They constitute the largest chain of atolls in the world, extending (from northwest to ...
. Amanu lies at right angles to neighbouring Hao Atoll; this orientation is quite rare for the Tuamotu atolls.
It is situated 900 km east of
Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...
and 15 km north of
Hao. The atoll is 32 km long (northeast to southwest) and 10 km wide, but only 15.55 km
2 of its land is above water, the rest forming the central
lagoon
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...
. The surface area of Amanu's wide lagoon is 240 km
2. There are two navigable passes to enter it.
Amanu has 195 inhabitants. The main village is Ikitake.
History
The first recorded European who arrived at Amanu Atoll was Portuguese navigator
Pedro Fernández de Quirós
Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician name for '' Peter''. Its French equivalent is Pierre while its English and Germanic form is Peter.
The counterpart patronymic surname of the name Pedro, meani ...
who navigated for Spain, on 12 February 1606, while sailing across the Pacific Ocean in search of
Terra Australis
(Latin for ) was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. Its existence was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that continental l ...
. However, several 16th-century Spanish cannons were found on Amanu in 1929, indicating that an earlier Spanish expedition had visited Tuamotu. Some historians notably
Robert Adrian Langdon believe the cannons belonged to the caravel ''
San Lesmes'', which was split off from the
Loaísa expedition which sailed the Pacific Ocean in 1526.
It was later visited by Spanish explorer
Domingo de Boenechea in 1774, that charted them as ''Las Ánimas'' (The Souls in Spanish).
Russian explorer
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen
Faddey Faddeyevich Bellingshausen or Fabian Gottlieb Benjamin von Bellingshausen ( – ) was a Russian cartographer, explorer, and naval officer of Baltic German descent, who attained the rank of admiral. He participated in the first Russi ...
visited Amanu in 1820 on ships ''Vostok'' and ''Mirni''. He named this atoll "Moller".
Bellingshausen
/ref>
Administration
Administratively Amanu forms a commune in French Polynesia
French Polynesia ( ; ; ) is an overseas collectivity of France and its sole #Governance, overseas country. It comprises 121 geographically dispersed islands and atolls stretching over more than in the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean. The t ...
which includes the atolls of Rekareka (uninhabited) and Tauere.
The Amanu commune is associated with the Hao commune.
References
*
External links
Atoll list (in French)
Atolls of the Tuamotus
{{FrenchPolynesia-geo-stub