Easter Island Geography

Rapa Nui is a triangle of volcanic rock about 164 square kilometres in area, roughly 24 kilometres along its longest side, sitting alone in the South Pacific.

Isolation

The nearest inhabited land is Pitcairn, about 2,075 kilometres west; the nearest continental coast is Chile, some 3,700 kilometres east. This is the definition of remoteness in human geography, and it is the single fact that makes everything else here remarkable — that people found it, settled it and built a complex society on it with no contact with anywhere else for centuries.

Three volcanoes

The island is the summit of a much larger volcanic massif rising from the sea floor. Its corners are three extinct cones: Terevaka in the north at 507 metres, the highest point; Poike in the east; and Rano Kau in the south-west, whose crater holds a freshwater lake a kilometre across, matted with reeds.

Rock and soil

Basalt, scoria and, at Rano Raraku, a consolidated volcanic tuff soft enough to work with stone tools and hard enough to last — which is why every moai but a handful came from that one crater. Red scoria for the topknots came from Puna Pau.

No permanent streams

Rain drains straight through the porous rock, so fresh water comes from the crater lakes, from wells and from springs that emerge below the tide line. Water has always been the constraint here.

Coast

Mostly low cliff and broken lava, with very few landing places and only one real sand beach, at Anakena.