Tikehau (meaning ''Peaceful Landing'' in TuamotuanOfficial Tikehau Tourism Site
Publisher: Tahiti Tourisme. Accessed 16 February 2010) or Porutu-kai 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 ...

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

Palliser Islands The Palliser Islands or Pallisers are a subgroup of the Tuamotus, Tuamotu group in French Polynesia. They are located in the very northwest of the main group of atolls. Atolls The group includes: *Apataki *Arutua *Fakarava *Kaukura *Mataiva *Rang ...

group, part of the Tuamotu Archipelago 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 ...

. It is included in the commune of

Rangiroa Rangiroa ( Tuamotuan for 'vast sky') or Te Kokōta (Cook Islands Māori Cook Islands Māori is an Eastern Polynesian language that is the official language of the Cook Islands. Cook Islands Māori is closely related to, but distinct from ...

History

The first recorded European to arrive to Tikehau was the Russian mariner Otto von Kotzebue. He called this atoll Krusenstern Island, after Russian explorer

Adam Johann von Krusenstern Adam Johann von Krusenstern (; 10 October 177012 August 1846) was a Russian admiral and explorer of Swedish and Baltic German descent, who led the first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth in 1803–1806. Life Krusenstern was born i ...

. The Wilkes Expedition passed by this atoll on 9 September 1839. On a visit in 1987,

Jacques Cousteau Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (, also , ; 11 June 191025 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful open-circuit self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA), called the ...

's research group made a study of Tikehau's lagoon and discovered that it contains a greater variety of fish species than any other place in French Polynesia. Today, Tikehau is a tourist destination, popular for its pink sand beaches and its exceptional underwater fauna.

Geography

Tikehau is located northeast 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 ...

in the Tuamotu Islands. The nearest atoll,

, lies only to the east. Mataiva, the westernmost atoll of the same group, is located to the west. The atoll's oval-shaped

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 ...

is long and wide with a lagoon area of about . The atoll is made up of two major islands and numerous islets. The northeastern quarter of the atoll is a single, mostly uninhabited island. The whole atoll is surrounded by an almost continuous coral reef. There is a single pass deep and wide enough for navigation in and out of the lagoon: Tuheiava Pass is located on the western shore. The islands and islets are covered with

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (biology), family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, ...

palms. The main village is called Tuherahera.

Geology

Geologically, the atoll is the coral outgrowth (10 meters) of the summit of the volcanic

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...

of the same name, 1,750 meters high, from the ocean floor, which was formed some 63.5 to 65.1 million years ago. Tikehau, along with Niau and especially Makatea, is an elevated atoll (the highest point is 10 meters above sea level) resulting from a fossa, i.e., a coral reef that was exposed and "dolomitized" when it was pulled out of the water during a

lithosphere A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the lithospheric mantle, the topmost portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time ...

bulge between 1 and 2 million years ago.

Fauna and flora

During his numerous expeditions,

defined the sea surrounding this island as one of the richest in fish in the world. In fact, Tikehau's lagoon is home to eagle rays, schools of barracuda and tuna, hammerhead sharks, gray sharks,

turtle Turtles are reptiles of the order (biology), order Testudines, characterized by a special turtle shell, shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Crypt ...

s, dolphins and a variety of other animals. The atoll is also home to numerous bird colonies, such as the Tahitian long-billed reed warbler ( Acrocephalus caffer), the Tuamotu thyllopope ( Ptilinopus coralensis) and the rare parrot Vini peruviana.

Economy

Tikehau has a traditional fishing industry with fish farms located near the Tuheiava Passage, as well as a small pearl farming industry. However, the atoll's

economy An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

is mainly based on tourism, developed around the "Tikehau Pearl Beach" resort, whose activity increased with the construction of a 1,200-meter-long airfield in 1977. and 40,000

passenger A passenger is a person who travels in a vehicle, but does not bear any responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination or otherwise operate the vehicle, and is not a steward. The vehicles may be bicycles, ...

s a year, a third of which are in transit, making it one of the busiest in the Tuamotus. In addition, since 2018, the atoll has had four licensed hydrosurfaces (three in the south of the

, one on the oceanic drop-off) that allow seaplanes to land. Other major sources of income are government-subsidized copra extraction and commercial

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

. There is a bakery, two small stores and a small bar. In 2001, a small sawmill was built with government assistance, where three to five locals find work. There is also a diving center, a luxury hotel and an

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

with the IATA code TIH.

Transportation

Tikehau Airport, located on the southern tip of the atoll, was inaugurated in 1977. There are daily flights to and from Tahiti and other atolls of the Tuamotus.

Religion

Most of the population, as in the rest of the

Tuamotus 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 ...

Islands, follows

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

as a consequence of the activity of both Catholic and Protestant missionaries. The

Catholic church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

has a religious building on the site known as St. Nicodemus Church (''Église de Saint-Nicodème'') whose history dates back to 1867, although the present structure was consecrated only in 1992. It depends on the Metropolitan

Archdiocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated ...

of Papeete with headquarters on the island of

Additional photographs and maps

File:Tikehau-SE.jpg, Southeastern part of the Tikehau atoll, showing multiple islets File:Tikehau_Atoll_-_Landsat_ETM%2B_S-06-10_2000_and_S-06-15_2000_%281-150%2C000%29.jpg, Image Source: Landsat S-06-10_2000 and S-06-15_2000 File:Tikehau_Atoll_-_EVS_Precision_Map_(1-150,000)_Finished.jpg, Map Source: EVS Precision Map (1:150,000) File:Carte Tikehau.png, Map Source: Other Map File:Tikehau map.png, Map of Tikehau

Notes

References

External links

Article from Hydrobiologia

Atoll names

Historical data

Shuttle Image ISS008-E-17132 (Astronaut Photography)
*

High-resolution picture from the Earth Observatory
{{Authority control Atolls of the Tuamotus