Tepoto, also known as Te Poto, Toho, or Pukapoto, is a

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

. It is the northwesternmost of the Disappointment Islands, 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 ...

. Despite being often referred to as "atoll", Tepoto is not a typical Tuamotu atoll, but a single separate island without a lagoon. It is located at the limit of the Tuamotu archipelago; the closest land is Napuka, which lies to the southeast. Tepoto is long and wide; it has an area of . This island is sometimes called Tepoto Nord in French, to avoid confusion with Tepoto Atoll (Tepoto Sud) to the southwest, in the Raeffsky Islands of central Tuamotu. An obsolete name is Otuho. According to the 2012

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

, its population was 61 inhabitants. The primary village is Tehekega. There is a wide road running around the whole island. In 2018 there were about 40 residents, 13 of which were children under the age of 12.A Journey to the Disappointment Islands
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History

The first European to see these islands was Ferdinand Magellan in his 1520 expedition to the Philippines and the Spice Islands. He called them the "Unfortunate Islands" (Ilhas Desafortunadas) because his sailors could not find a water source there from which to replenish, while en route to the Philippine Islands.

Administration

Tepoto Nord belongs to the commune of Napuka. The commune of Napuka consists of the atolls of Napuka and Tepoto Nord.

References

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TepotoAtoll names

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 ...

Islands of the Tuamotus {{FrenchPolynesia-geo-stub

History

Administration

References

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