It’s not called Easter Island – locals refer to the island as Rapa Nui. An official name change was approved by the Chilean Government.
Where is Easter Island? – it is located in the south-eastern Pacific Ocean in Oceania, and Chile is the nearest country to Easter Island.
It is the most remote island in the world – Pitcairn Island is the closest inhabited neighbour, located 2,075 kilometres distant.
Can you travel to Easter Island? – Easter Island has no harbours, thus the only method to get there is via plane.
How were the statues on Easter Island created? – the statues are composed of tuff, which is hardened volcanic ash found in the island’s Rano Raraku volcano crater. Because tuff is a relatively soft rock, islanders would have sculpted it by hand using stone chisels.
On Easter, Easter Island was found – The island got its name from the day it was found, Easter Sunday. On this day in 1722, Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen became the Island’s first known visitor.
The Easter Island heads are not just heads – the bodies of the sculptures on the island have likewise been immersed in the earth throughout time. The sculptures on the statues’ bodies are likewise quite stunning.
Someone attempted to take a piece of a Moai statue… and it did not go well! – In 2008, a Finnish visitor attempted to take the ear of one of the moai sculptures. As it turned out, this was not a very good idea. He faced a jail sentence of up to 7 years.
One of the statues is… unique – except for one, most of the sculptures have elongated features that are identical. Tukuturi is the name of the statue, and he is significantly shorter than his other stone companions. Not only that, but he has highly distinguishing qualities from the others, such as a human-like head paired with a little beard. Tukuturi is also constructed of a different substance.
