The Shepherd Islands (coordinates ) are a group of islands lying between the larger islands of Epi and Éfaté, in the Shefa province 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 ...

. The aggregate land area is . They were named by

Captain Cook Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 1768 and 1779. He complet ...

after Anthony Shepherd, a British astronomer and friend of Cook. From north to south, the principal islands are:

Laika Laika ( ; , ; – 3 November 1957) was a Soviet space dog who was one of the first animals in space and the first to orbit the Earth. A stray mongrel from the streets of Moscow, she flew aboard the Sputnik 2 spacecraft, launched into lo ...

Tongoa Tongoa is an inhabited island in Shefa Province of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean. Geography Tongoa is the largest island of Shepherd Islands archipelago. The island is heavily vegetated and shows geothermal activity. Tongoa is of recent volcanic ...

(Kuwaé), Buninga (Mbining), Ewose, Falea, Tongariki (Atong), Émaé (Mai),

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 ...

(Emwae), Mataso (Matah), and

Monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical ...

(Étarik). Émaé and Tongoa are the largest islands in the group. The region includes two submarine volcanoes, Kuwae and Makura. The islands are principally in the outlines of the calderas of these volcanoes. The highest of the islands is Émaé, at

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

, Tongariki is also above .

Population and languages

At the 2009 census, the population numbered 3,634. The Shepherd Islands are quite densely populated. There is little economic activity although fishing is very good. Many people move to Port Vila to find work. Most of the islands are inhabited by

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Vanu ...

ns like most of Vanuatu, but Émaé and

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. Other than Emae, on which is spoken a Futunic language, there are, according to ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...

'', two languages spoken on the other islands: North Éfaté, spoken on Tongoa; and Namakura, spoken on Mataso, Makura, Tongoa, and Tongariki. These are all also spoken on the island of Éfaté, and are closely related to one another and the other languages of Éfaté and central Vanuatu in the language group

Central Vanuatu languages The Central Vanuatu languages form a linkage of Southern Oceanic languages spoken in central Vanuatu. Languages Clark (2009) Clark (2009) provides the following classification of the Central Vanuatu languages, divided into geographic areas. Outl ...

References

Islands of Vanuatu Shefa Province Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean {{Vanuatu-geo-stub