Map of Easter Island

From Wikipedia, courtesy of Eric Gaba





Easter Island is made up principally of three volcanoes.

The oldest is Poike, to the far right i.e. east, which is either 600,000 or 3 million years old.  Next to it it is a smaller volcano, Rano Raraku, which is the volcano from which all the statues on the island were quarried, and where over 300 of them still remain.

The second oldest is Rano Kau at the bottom left i.e. south west,  which is where the Birdman village Orongo is situated.

However the youngest volcano,  around 200,000 years old, is Terevaka situated near northern part of the triangle, in the top left corner. It is also by far the biggest and archaeologically by far the least interesting.

The only town on the island is Hanga Roa, which is seen near the south-western corner. The island's airport running right across the neck of the island from sea to sea, is just to the south of it.

Around the coast of the island are the numerous platforms, most of which once held statues.

This splendid map (click to make it bigger) comes from Wikipedia where it was drawn by Eric Gaba,  a Frenchman living in Brazilia.