Choiseul Island
 Topographic map of Choiseul | |
  | |
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Solomon Islands |
| Coordinates | 7°05′S 157°00′E / 7.08°S 157.0°ECoordinates: 7°05′S 157°00′E / 7.08°S 157.0°E |
| Area | 2,971 km2 (1,147 sq mi) |
| Country | |
|
Solomon Islands | |
| Province | Choiseul Province |
Choiseul Island, native name Lauru,[1] is the largest island (2 971 km²) of the Choiseul Province, Solomon Islands, at 7°05′S 157°00′E / 7.08°S 157°E.
Description
This island is named after Étienne François, duc de Choiseul.
The first recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña in April 1568. More precisely the sighting was due to a local voyage done by a small boat, in the accounts the brigantine Santiago, commanded by Maestre de Campo Pedro Ortega Valencia and having Hernán Gallego as pilot. They charted it as San Marcos, and also who named the narrow channel separating San Jorge from Santa Isabel Island as the Ortega channel after the commander of the expedition.[2][3]
Choiseul was visited by Austrian anthropologist and photographer Hugo Bernatzik in 1932. Bernatzik documented some of the few remaining ancestral customs of the island people which are included in an ethnography that he published a few years later. He also took some photographs of the islanders and brought back a stone urn with carvings, reflecting a culture that he deemed was dying in contact with the modern world.[4]
The administrative headquarters of Choiseul Province is situated in the town of Taro.
See also
References
- ↑ Hugo Bernatzik, Südsee; ein Reisebuch, first edition Leipzig 1934
- ↑ Sharp, Andrew The discovery of the Pacific Islands Oxford, 1960, p.45.
- ↑ Brand, Donald D. The Pacific Basin: A History of its Geographical Explorations The American Geographical Society, New York, 1967, p.133.
- ↑ Hugo Bernatzik, Owa Raha. Büchergilde Gutenberg, Vienna / Zürich / Prague, 1936
