The Santa Cruz Islands form an

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

Temotu Province Temotu (or Te Motu, literally "the island" in Polynesian) is the easternmost province of Solomon Islands. The province was formerly known as Santa Cruz Islands Province. It consists, essentially, of two chains of islands which run parallel to ...

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

. They lie approximately to the southeast of the Solomon Islands archipelago, just north of the archipelago of

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 ...

and are considered part of the Vanuatu rain forests

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

. The term Santa Cruz Islands is sometimes used to encompass all the islands of Temotu Province, Solomon Islands.

Geography

The largest island is Nendö, which is also known as Santa Cruz Island proper.

Lata Latha (Hindi: लता, Kannada: ಲತಾ) is a Hindu Indian female given name, which means "creeper" and "Durga". Latha may refer to: Notable people named Lata *Lata Mangeshkar (1929–2022), Indian singer. *Lata Bhatt (born 1954), Indian sin ...

, located on Nendö, is the largest town, and is the capital of Temotu Province. Other islands belonging to the Santa Cruz group are

Vanikoro Vanikoro (sometimes wrongly named ''Vanikolo'') is an island in the Santa Cruz Islands, Santa Cruz group, located to the Southeast of the main Santa Cruz group. It is part of the Temotu Province of Solomon Islands. The name ''Vanikoro'' is alway ...

(which is actually made up of two islands, Banie and its small neighbour Teanu) and

Utupua Utupua is an island in the Santa Cruz Islands, located 66 km to the Southeast of the main Santa Cruz group, between Vanikoro and Santa Cruz proper (Nendö). This island belongs administratively to the Temotu Province of Solomon Islands. G ...

. The table below provides basic data on these three islands. The Santa Cruz Islands are less than five million years old and were pushed upward by the

tectonic Tectonics ( via Latin ) are the processes that result in the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. The field of ''planetary tectonics'' extends the concept to other planets and moons. These processes ...

subduction Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere and some continental lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at the convergent boundaries between tectonic plates. Where one tectonic plate converges with a second p ...

of the northward-moving Indo-Australian Plate under the Pacific Plate. The islands are mostly composed of

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

and

volcanic ash Volcanic ash consists of fragments of rock, mineral crystals, and volcanic glass, produced during volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm (0.079 inches) in diameter. The term volcanic ash is also often loosely used to r ...

over limestone.

Culture

Languages

The native languages of the islands are classified as the Reef Islands – Santa Cruz languages, within the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family.

Ocean Navigation

Historically, the people of Santa Cruz made long-distance ocean-going voyages using Tepukei. Tepukei are ocean-going outrigger canoes specific to some Polynesian societies of eastern Solomon Islands including Santa Cruz. In 1966 Gerd Koch, a German anthropologist, carried out research at Graciosa Bay on Nendö Island (Ndende/Ndeni) in the Santa Cruz Islands and on Pileni and Fenualoa in the Reef Islands, and returned with documentary film, photographic and audio material. The films that Koch completed are now held by the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) in Hanover. He brought back to the Ethnological Museum of Berlin the last still complete Tepukei from the Santa Cruz Islands. In 1971 Koch published ''Die Materielle Kultur der Santa Cruz-Inseln'' (The Material Culture of the Santa Cruz Islands). Navigators from the Santa Cruz islands retained traditional navigation techniques into the 20th century; these techniques were also known by the navigators of the Caroline Islands. In 1969, Tevake accompanied David Henry Lewis on his

ketch A ketch is a two- masted sailboat whose mainmast is taller than the mizzen mast (or aft-mast), and whose mizzen mast is stepped forward of the rudder post. The mizzen mast stepped forward of the rudder post is what distinguishes the ketch f ...

''Isbjorn'' from Taumako using traditional navigation techniques by studying wave patterns and made landfall at Fenualoa, having navigated for without being able to view the stars, due to cloud cover. On a second voyage from Nifiloli to

, Tevake navigated by the stars, wave patterns, and the patterns of

bioluminescence Bioluminescence is the emission of light during a chemiluminescence reaction by living organisms. Bioluminescence occurs in multifarious organisms ranging from marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some Fungus, fungi, microorgani ...

that indicated the direction in which islands were located.

Contact with other cultures

The islands were visited by Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña, the first European to sight them, on his second Pacific expedition in 1595. Mendaña started a colony on Nendö which he named ''Santa Cruz'', at the place also named by the Spaniards as Graciosa Bay, and he died there in 1596.

World War II

During the Pacific campaign of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the

Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands The Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, fought during 25–27 October 1942, sometimes referred to as the Battle of Santa Cruz or Third Battle of Solomon Sea, in Japan as the Battle of the South Pacific ( ''Minamitaiheiyō kaisen''), was the fourt ...

was fought north of the Santa Cruz group and some

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tech ...

s were based in Graciosa Bay, with one reportedly sinking at the seaplane base there. U.S. Navy Patrol Squadron 23 (VP-23), known as the "Seahawks," was stationed at Graciosa Bay, from which it operated

Consolidated PBY Catalina The Consolidated Model 28, more commonly known as the PBY Catalina (U.S. Navy designation), is a flying boat and amphibious aircraft designed by Consolidated Aircraft in the 1930s and 1940s. In U.S. Army service, it was designated as the OA- ...

flying boat A flying boat is a type of seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in having a fuselage that is purpose-designed for flotation, while floatplanes rely on fuselage-mounted floats for buoyancy. Though ...

s, including on "Black Cat" night missions. Chemical ordnance stored on Vanikoro Island during World War II was not completely removed until the 1990s.

2013 Solomon Islands earthquake

The Santa Cruz Islands were affected by the

2013 Solomon Islands earthquake The 2013 Solomon Islands earthquake (also known as the Santa Cruz earthquake) struck Temotu Province within Solomon Islands on 6 February with a moment magnitude of 8.0 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (''Severe''). The epicentre ...

and subsequent

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

on 6 February 2013. The

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

produced a tsunami measuring at

Lata, Solomon Islands Lata is the provincial capital of Temotu Province, Solomon Islands. As of 2007, it had 553 inhabitants. There are a few rest houses for overnight stays. There is a post office, telecom office and several stores. The town contains a small air stri ...

, that reached about inland. The airport and low-lying areas were flooded, killing nine people, five of them elderly and one a child. More than 100 houses on the island were damaged, and the water and electricity services were interrupted. It was reported that almost all houses in Nela village were washed away, and some homes in Venga village were shifted by water.

Notes

References

Santa Cruz and the Reef Islands
by W.C. O'Ferrall—1908 account with many illustrations by missionary in Santa Cruz from 1897 to 1904.

External links

* * {{Authority control Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean Islands of the Solomon Islands Former Spanish colonies