Edinburgh of the Seven Seas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also: Edinburgh (disambiguation)

Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is the main settlement of the island of Tristan da Cunha, a territory of the United Kingdom in the South Atlantic Ocean and administered as a dependency of Saint Helena. It is named after Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria, when he visited the island in 1867.^[1] Locally it is always referred to as The Settlement.

The settlement was founded on Tristan in 1815 by a Sergeant Glass from the Borders of Scotland^{[citation needed]} after the UK annexed Tristan da Cunha. A military garrison was maintained on the Islands as a guard against any French attempts to rescue Napoleon, imprisoned on Saint Helena. The military garrison remained until the end of World War II.

Edinburgh is the only major settlement of Tristan, and contains a small port, the Administrator's residence, and the Post Office. It was damaged in a volcanic eruption on the Island in 1961 which forced the entire population to abandon the Settlement and move to the UK. The few that stayed in Edinburgh of the Seven Seas thought up an ingenious system to set up hoses that would automatically spray water on the lava, to cool the lava at the front, and send the rest behind it to change course or to freeze. The eruption destroyed Edinburgh's crayfish factory, and pirates looted the abandoned buildings.

After the return of most of the Islanders in 1963, the Settlement was rebuilt.

Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is regarded as the most remote permanent settlement in the world, being over 1,500 miles (2400 kilometres) from the nearest human settlement, on Saint Helena.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] External links

• Description of the settlement
• Information from the Tristan da Cunha Association
• Tourism Information

Tristan da Cunha
Tristan da Cunha | Inaccessible Island | Nightingale Islands (Nightingale Island | Middle Island | Stoltenhoff Island) | Gough Island

Coordinates: 37°04′S 12°19′W / 37.067°S 12.317°W / -37.067; -12.317

v • d • e Capitals of British territories British overseas territories Crown dependencies Constituent countries The Valley, Anguilla Hamilton, Bermuda Rothera, British Antarctic Territory Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory Road Town, British Virgin Islands George Town, Cayman Islands Stanley, Falkland Islands Gibraltar, Gibraltar Plymouth (de jure), Brades (de facto), Montserrat Adamstown, Pitcairn Islands Jamestown, Saint Helena  Georgetown, Ascension Island Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, Tristan da Cunha Grytviken (de jure), King Edward Point (de facto), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Episkopi Cantonment, Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia Cockburn Town, Turks and Caicos Islands Saint Helier, Jersey St. Peter Port, Guernsey Douglas, Isle of Man London, England and the United Kingdom Edinburgh, Scotland Cardiff, Wales Belfast, Northern Ireland